A generative AI-based fact-checking company started by two expatriates from Humane.AI enters the race with $4 million in seed funding. The initial round, led by Bee Partners, includes participation from a16z's Scout Fund, Alumni Ventures, and FJ Labs. Infactory's value is estimated at $25 million.
The San Francisco startup was reported in a TechCrunch article in July. One of the more notable elements of the story was Brooke Hartley Moy and Ken Kocienda's decision to jump into the troubled Humane Corporation. Prior to that, Kocienda worked for 15 years as a software engineer for Apple's iPhone. As well as co-founders of the company, Hartley Moy and Kocienda serve as CEO and CTO, respectively.
There is no doubt that Infactory's use of generative AI, even though the technology is still immature, has piqued investor interest. So was a promise to address the very real problem of online fact-checking.
The young company was quick to point out how large-scale language models (LLMs) were not utilized on their platform. Specifically, it is used to determine the intent of natural language search queries, rather than the results themselves. After all, the black-box nature and biases built into large-scale models defeat the purpose of fact-checking services. The suspicious Gemini search results are clear evidence of this phenomenon.
As Hartley Moy told TechCrunch in July, deciding which sources to prioritize requires a lot of scrutiny.
“Our goal here is to be selective in terms of partnerships,” she said at the time. “Not all data partners are created equal, which is why we focus more on data vendors than content providers. I think it's because the business ensures that those things are accurate.”
The new funding round will help expand the team and strengthen Infactory's go-to-market efforts.