Has GetReal cracked the code on AI deepfakes? $18M and an impressive client list say yes

The proliferation of scary realistic deepfakes is one of the more harmful by -products of the rise of AI, and becoming a victim of scams based on these deep fakes already costs companies Millions of Dollars – Not to mention the implications that they can have on national security. A startup that has built up a tool set that is aimed at governments and companies to help detect and stop deepfakes and imitations in audio, video and stationary images announces some financing on Wednesday with some impressive customers and investors in tow rope.

Tread -Founded by Hany Farid, one of the pioneers in detecting DeepFake-Media-has collected $ 17.5 million in equity, financing that it will use for R&D, recruitment and business development.

In addition to financing, the company is launching its forensic platform as a service, including a web interface, an API and integrations to perform media analysis as a service. Characteristics include a dashboard for exposing threats; an “inspection” tool that is specifically aimed at protecting controversial managers of the Spoofed; A “protection” tool to screen media; And “respond”, with human teams performing a deeper analysis at GEBREAL.

Forgepoint Capital, a specialist in cyber security and AI, leads this Serie A with ballistic companies, Evolution Equity and K2 Access Fund.

Ballistic is an important company in that list. TREAL were incubated in the VC from 2022 until it came from Stealth in June 2024. Ballistic also led the seed of GEGREAL – a round that, per pitchbook, also included Venrock, Artisanal, Qudit and Silver Buckshot.

Ballistic is important for another reason: the founder of the company, Ted Schlein, is the chairman and the other co-founder of GEreal. Schlein led smaller Perkins for ballistic.

Hany as a service

TREAL is in the wider world of cyber security, in particular in the rapidly evolving area of ​​cyber forensics. The gap in the market that tackles the San Mateo -based startup is the lack of talent and knowledge in that space.

“If you think CyberSecurity has a shortage of people, get ready for forensic research,” said Matt Moynahan, the CEO of GeTreal.

Moynahan is not the founder of the startup; He came to Tealed while it still in secret A career of three decades long Leading a series of large cyber security companies such as Symantec, Arbor Networks, Veracode and Forcepoint.

“To be honest, I don’t think I have seen a threat that is omnipresent,” he said about the possibility of creating malignant deep fakes and then applying.

He described viruses as a “new threat” in comparison. “What we have seen in the last 20 years is the threat that goes to the end user,” he said. “Nice” apps with which people can make deep fakes are part of the problem, but that also applies to the environment in which we work today. “People went from bricks and mortar to companies that are now almost completely digital and in the cloud.”

Phishing, he said, proved that even very smart people can easily be misled and all can be taken together, it is a complicated and very bad sign for where things can go.

TREAL is the brainchild of Farid, an old, well -known academic (currently at UC Berkeley) that is considered a pioneer In techniques to identify when digital images are promoted. Farid was undoubtedly understanding the risks of deepfakes before the term even originated.

While Farid explained it to TechCrunch, while he mainly worked as an academic and researcher, he has more or less applied his lessons for years as a service on media organizations, legal teams (after digital images were allowed for the court) and others. In 2022 he came together with Schlein to consider how he can translate that into an actual company, so that that research process was converted into code.

“Nobody is going in this as Hany does,” said Moynahan. “But Hany can’t scale. So we actually took Hany and tried to make a” Hany service “in the cloud.”

Interestingly, Farid notices that although the technology it develops depends on how new apps work – there is a lot of reverse engineering that takes place at GEreag – it is combined with decades of knowledge that has changed very little.

“There are techniques that we developed 20 years ago that still work today,” he said. He refused to explain what they are. “You don’t have to tell people everything we do, but it is complicated to be right.”

The signal effect: still text

The Serie A announced on Wednesday also includes some important strategic financiers, including Cisco Investments, Capital One Ventures and In-Q-Tel, an investment firm that is closely linked to the CIA.

That list of strategy reflects the types of companies that are interested in or have already started accepting the product of GEBREAL, said Alberto Yépez, the co-founder of Forgepoint who led the investment.

What Yépez said he discovered that during the necessary diligence was that heavily regulated industries – such as financial institutions – already asked for a product like this, and Cisos reached a mandate of the boards of directors.

“They have discussed the issue [of deepfaked impersonations] After their CEOs were put into voice interviews, “he said. They were presented to themselves And cheated by imitation. Customers include John Deere and Visa.

As for government work, Yépez said: “They also have some priorities in space.”

These “priorities” include intelligence services and government officials that are misled to act or not act, based on forged information from bad actors.

However, they have to extend to text -based imitations.

That is something that only came up this week, when the editor of the Atlantic Ocean was wrongly added to a Signal Group -Chat who initially assumed a military attack in Yemen, initially assumed that it was a simulation. Shocking, the chat turned out to be very real and very contrary to national security procedures.

Farid said that the text is currently not in Greeal’s Purview. “It’s another beast,” he said. But in the longer term, the plan will be to increase the scope over time to include all kinds of deepfake and imitation beds.