Refute, a London-based tech firm devoted to detecting and combating disinformation campaigns focusing on industrial organisations, has raised €2.7 million in a pre-seed funding spherical.
The funding was led by Playfair and Episode 1, with contributions from Notion Capital, Amadeus Capital Companions, and angel traders, together with Charlie Songhurst, Carlos Espinal, James Chappell, and Alastair Paterson.
Tom Garnett, Co-founder and CEO at Refute says, “Business organisations are largely unprotected from disinformation campaigns, which might have devastating penalties on the resilience of society. Corporations can lose out on contracts price many thousands and thousands, or see their valuations lowered considerably. By defending organisations from malicious coordinated assaults, we’re implementing a line of defence for all stakeholders concerned in these important providers.”
Based by Tom Garnett and Vlad Galu in 2024, Refute addresses the growing vulnerability of corporations to disinformation assaults. These assaults have been fuelled in recent times by each rising geopolitical instability and widespread use of generative AI to create and propagate disinformation.
While authorities regulation goals to deal with disinformation, Refute argues it doesn’t at present cowl the broad spectrum of assaults on industrial organisations, that are more and more susceptible to the reputational and monetary impression of disinformation campaigns.
As per Refute, probably the most damaging disinformation takes the type of refined campaigns centered on the corporate, their executives, and the availability chain.
‘Menace actors’ are sometimes state sponsored or industrial opponents, and even individuals benefiting from a possibility to generate profits. These campaigns are coordinated throughout channels together with information, social media, blogs and boards.
Refute’s strategy fuses interconnected information, tracks narratives throughout channels, and makes use of quantitative modelling to establish and counter malicious campaigns in actual time. This method allows organisations to detect assaults earlier, cut back false positives, and optimise responses to cross-channel threats. Refute’s strategies enable corporations to uncover hidden disinformation campaigns and reply with the pace essential to mitigate injury.
Vlad Galu, Co-founder and CTO at Refute says, “Having spent most of our careers enhancing the resilience of the web and the identification belief fashions that underpin it, we’re uniquely positioned to unravel the worldwide risk of disinformation. We look ahead to bringing our distinct strategy to our design companions and early adopters, and constructing on their suggestions to create an unparalleled disinformation defence ecosystem.”
The rise of generative AI has additional exacerbated the issue, making it simpler and cheaper to supply refined falsified content material at scale.
Nevertheless, as Simon Murdoch, Managing Associate at Episode 1, famous, these applied sciences also can contribute to options: “Generative AI has introduced the chance to create falsified info at scale, enabling large-scale disinformation assaults to be deployed rapidly and cheaply. Nevertheless, this similar expertise will be utilised as a part of the answer, leading to a step change in functionality for detection and response.”
Playfair Capital’s Andrew Sheffield highlighted the worldwide significance of Refute’s mission: “The data panorama is altering: it’s tougher than ever to inform truth from fiction, and the price of spreading deceptive content material continues to fall. The World Financial Discussion board cited disinformation because the primary world threat in 2024. Tom and Vlad possess forty-plus years of expertise in information evaluation, cybersecurity, tackling terrorist assaults, identification administration and cash laundering. We imagine they’re completely positioned to deal with this vital world difficulty and are excited to be on the journey with them.”
Refute’s funding will likely be used to refine its platform, interact with early adopters, and additional develop its defence ecosystem to handle some of the urgent challenges within the digital age.