Refute, a London-based startup using AI to counter hostile disinformation threats, has secured a £5m seed investment led by Amadeus Capital Partners.
Founded by an experienced team of counterterrorism and crime fighting technology developers, Refute emerged from stealth in 2024 with its military-grade AI system to combat one of the most prevalent threat sources in the modern age of warfare.
The Refute platform is used to detect early-stage signals of online manipulation, providing warnings, intelligence and recommended responses.
“Europe is facing the most significant wave of hybrid warfare in modern history. Disinformation is no longer just a peripheral nuisance, but now a reputational threat and strategic weapon targeting nations, institutions and corporations alike. Refute was created to meet this moment,” said the firm’s founder and chief executive Tom Garnett.
“We help governments and commercial organisations strengthen their resilience, protect their operations, and outpace their adversaries to function in an increasingly hostile information environment.”
Refute monitoring has been used, for example, to identify inauthentic social media videos attempting to amplify extremist candidates in European elections.
Alongside Amadeus, backers of the startups latest round included Playfair, Episode 1, Osney Capital and the UK government-owned National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF).
“Disinformation is one of the fastest growing risks globally for governments and enterprises. Tom and Vlad have demonstrated their ability to execute quickly and build a world leading set of capabilities which detects and responds to threats autonomously at the speed of the attackers,” said James Baker, principal at Amadeus Capital Partners.
“This is hugely valuable and is being demonstrated already with a significant pace of adoption from customers. We couldn’t be more excited to join this journey to build the dominant disinformation analytics product globally.”
