Refute, a London-based tech firm devoted to detecting and combating disinformation campaigns concentrating 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 buyers, together with Charlie Songhurst, Carlos Espinal, James Chappell, and Alastair Paterson.
Tom Garnett, Co-founder and CEO at Refute says, “Industrial organisations are largely unprotected from disinformation campaigns, which may have devastating penalties on the resilience of society. Corporations can lose out on contracts value many hundreds of thousands, or see their valuations decreased 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 firms 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 sort out disinformation, Refute argues it doesn’t at the moment cowl the broad spectrum of assaults on industrial organisations, that are more and more weak to the reputational and monetary influence of disinformation campaigns.
As per Refute, probably the most damaging disinformation takes the type of subtle campaigns targeted on the corporate, their executives, and the availability chain.
‘Risk actors’ are sometimes state sponsored or industrial rivals, and even folks making the most of a chance to make cash. These campaigns are coordinated throughout channels together with information, social media, blogs and boards.
Refute’s method fuses interconnected knowledge, tracks narratives throughout channels, and makes use of quantitative modelling to determine and counter malicious campaigns in actual time. This method permits organisations to detect assaults earlier, cut back false positives, and optimise responses to cross-channel threats. Refute’s strategies enable firms 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 bettering the resilience of the web and the identification belief fashions that underpin it, we’re uniquely positioned to resolve the worldwide risk of disinformation. We look ahead to bringing our distinct method 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 subtle falsified content material at scale.
Nevertheless, as Simon Murdoch, Managing Companion at Episode 1, famous, these applied sciences also can contribute to options: “Generative AI has offered the chance to create falsified data at scale, enabling large-scale disinformation assaults to be deployed shortly and cheaply. Nevertheless, this similar know-how might 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 knowledge panorama is altering: it’s more durable than ever to inform reality 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 knowledge evaluation, cybersecurity, tackling terrorist assaults, identification administration and cash laundering. We imagine they’re completely positioned to sort out this essential world concern 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 deal with one of the urgent challenges within the digital age.