Reality Defender offers a platform that detects deepfakes and AI-generated content across audio, video, images, and text for enterprises, platforms, and governments. Founded in 2021 and led by CEO Ben Colman, the company has partnered with financial entities, government agencies, and media conglomerates. Since launch it has detected millions of deepfakes, prevented advanced voice fraud in real time, and deflected state-sponsored attackers. The company announced an expansion of its Series A to $33M and intends to use the funds to expand operations and accelerate development efforts. Alexander Ross of Illuminate Financial will join the Reality Defender board following the financing. Investors in the round include Illuminate Financial, Booz Allen Ventures, IBM Ventures, the Jeffries Family Office, Accenture Ventures, DCVC, The Partnership Fund for New York City, and Y Combinator. Reality Defender offers an API and web app that analyze videos, audio, text and images for signs of AI-driven modifications, using proprietary models trained on in-house datasets. The company trains an ensemble of deep-learning detection models and emphasizes real-world performance over lab-only accuracy. It began as a nonprofit and was founded in 2021 by Ben Colman, Ali Shahriyari and Gaurav Bharaj; Colman is a former Goldman Sachs VP. Reality Defender's 23-person team will be doubled with the new funding as the company improves its detection models. Customers include governments across several continents, top-tier financial institutions, media corporations and multinationals. The company competes with startups like DeepMedia, Truepic, Sentinel and Effectiv as well as incumbent tools from Microsoft. Reality Defender plans an explainable-AI tool to highlight AI-generated text and will roll out real-time voice detection for call centers followed by a real-time video detection tool.

Total raised

$48M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Oct 2024