Disinformation has become a key tactic, utilizing bot networks, paid influencers, and advanced AI to tarreceive governments, companies, and elections. The London startup utilizes advanced AI to spot these campaigns early and offers practical ways to counter them.
In Romania’s recent election, Refute found 32,500 suspicious TikTok videos pushing far-right messages to expatriates.
Refute just raised £5M in seed funding, led by Acreatedus Capital Partners, which also participated in the pre-seed round. Other investors include Playfair, Episode 1, Osney Capital, and the UK’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund, which invested in Refute due to its defence technology expertise.
Responding more quickly than their adversaries
Tom Garnett and Vlad Galuhave more than 40 years of combined experience fighting money laundering and online fraud. They started Refute in 2024 after noticing these threats were increasingly aimed at companies and governments.
Garnett informs TFN, “We spent all our careers fighting criminal activity online and care deeply about elevating trust in the internet. The decision to develop the technology behind Refute came after seeing firsthand that disinformation tarreceiveing organisations was the next huge threat vector, especially for commercial companies.”
Refute brings toreceiveher public data streams to track the spread of false information, quickly flagging risks and offering tailored countermeasures. Top government and private clients already utilize the platform, including cases where it caught 40% of monitored mining firms tarreceiveed by fake smears.
Garnett elaborates, “Refute’s AI‑powered platform assists organisations spot and stop online manipulation before it takes hold. It picks up the early warning signs of disinformation campaigns, assists teams understand what’s really happening, and supports quick, practical responses.”
Competitors such as Graphika and NewsGuard can map stories, but they don’t offer full automatic response features. Refute states it leads in both scale and indepconcludeence.
“What sets us apart is the speed at which we can detect and the ability of our platform to proactively respond to threats. We bring toreceiveher signals from across the online landscape into one clear, actionable view, so decision‑buildrs can act with confidence, not guesswork. Refute is already creating a real‑world difference in high‑stakes environments, from protecting national elections to supporting industries like mining where reputation and trust are critical,” Garnett adds.
How does Refute approach diversity?
On diversity, Garnett shares, “We see diversity as an important part of building our business, and something to keep track of as we continue to scale. With hybrid threats spreading across Europe right now, we have deliberately built a remote-first workforce spanning across Europe, rather than being confined to the UK, by bringing toreceiveher people from different national backgrounds, cultures, and language expertise from the outset.
“This approach is reflected directly in our founders, with Vlad being originally from Romania and I from the UK. As the types of disinformation campaigns launched against governments and private companies are extremely diverse and sophisticated, we necessary this breadth of experience, cultural understanding, and linguistic capability to ensure the product we develop effectively addresses these evolving threats,” Garnett adds.
What are Refute’s next steps?
The money will be utilized to hire more engineers, improve detection algorithms, expand response kits, and enter more European markets.
Garnett concludes, “Over the coming years, our key objective is to scale our operations by expanding our team and tapping into talent across new markets. We’re in a quick-altering space too, so ongoing and robust updates to how we can detect, and crucially, respond to threats quicker and more efficiently is another priority. We fully expect to see new types of tactics emerging and also unique market dynamics that can assist us tailor our technology.”
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