Blackbird.ai Raises $10M to Fight Brand Disinformation
Blackbird.AI Secures $10 Million in Series A Funding for Disinformation Intelligence
New York-based Blackbird.AI has successfully completed a $10 million Series A funding round as it prepares for the launch of its next-generation disinformation intelligence platform this autumn.
Investment Details
Dorilton Ventures spearheaded the Series A investment, with participation from new investors including Generation Ventures, Trousdale Ventures, StartFast Ventures, and Richard Clarke, a former chief counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council. NetX, an existing investor, also contributed to this funding round.
Strategic Use of Funds
Blackbird.AI intends to utilize the newly acquired funding to expand its operations and meet growing demand in both current and emerging markets. This expansion will involve increasing its team size and allocating more resources to product development.
Focus on Brand Protection
Founded in 2017, the startup provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution designed for brands and enterprises seeking to mitigate risks associated with malicious and manipulative information. The core mission is to safeguard the authenticity of corporate marketing efforts.
AI-Powered Disinformation Detection
The company employs a variety of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to analyze and interpret emerging narratives from across the internet. This process allows for the identification of disinformation risks targeting its clientele. It is important to note that this Blackbird.AI is distinct from a previous NLP startup, Blackbird, acquired by Etsy in 2016.
Analyzing Online Behavior
Blackbird.AI concentrates on automating the detection of manipulative narratives, prioritizing the identification of emerging disinformation threats for its clients. The service focuses on analyzing “cohorts” – or “tribes” – of online users who may be collectively manipulating information for shared interests or goals, such as groups focused on anti-vaccination or cryptocurrency.
Years of Research and Development
Wasim Khaled, CEO and co-founder of Blackbird, emphasizes that the team has dedicated five years to research and development, and “granular model development” to refine the product to its current state.
Platform Capabilities
“Our company is now an AI-driven disinformation and narrative intelligence platform,” Khaled explains to TechCrunch. “This represents the culmination of five years of intensive research and development, drawing on expertise from communications, national security, enterprise, psychology, and journalism.”
“We’ve consistently engaged with stakeholders in the field to understand their challenges and translate them into actionable components. We then automate these components, empowering individuals to make informed decisions amidst the pervasive information disorder.”
Platform Release and Partnership
The initial version of Blackbird’s SaaS platform was released in November 2020, though the startup has not yet disclosed specific customer numbers. Version 2 of the platform is scheduled for launch in November, according to Khaled.
The company also announced a partnership with PR firm Weber Shandwick, providing customers with support in responding to malicious messaging that could potentially harm their businesses, as identified by the platform.
The Rise of Disinformation
Disinformation has become a prominent concern in the digital age, though the phenomenon itself is not new. Historically, propaganda has been used to influence public opinion, but the internet has dramatically accelerated the spread of intentionally false or misleading content.
The Role of Social Media Algorithms
Studies indicate that “fake news” spreads online at a faster rate than accurate information. The ad-funded business models of major social media platforms contribute to this issue, as their algorithms prioritize engaging content, which often includes sensationalized or misleading information.
Financial Incentives for Disinformation
Stock and cryptocurrency trading provide additional incentives for the dissemination of disinformation, as exemplified by the recent fake press release falsely claiming Walmart would accept Litecoin.
A Growing Market
These factors contribute to a growing market for solutions that counter disinformation. ActiveFence, another startup in this space, recently announced a $100 million funding round. Other companies in the field include Primer and Yonder (formerly New Knowledge).
Industry Consolidation
Some earlier players in the disinformation space have been acquired by tech giants seeking to address the issue on their own platforms, such as U.K.-based Fabula AI, which was purchased by Twitter in 2019.
Facebook acquired Bloomsbury AI and regularly publishes reports on “coordinated inauthentic behavior” detected on its platforms, though its transparency is often questioned.
Wider Implications
The consequences of false online narratives extend beyond social media platforms, impacting numerous companies, organizations, and democratic processes.
Targeting Brands and Enterprises
Blackbird.AI focuses on selling its technology to brands and enterprises with the resources to mitigate reputational risks associated with targeted disinformation campaigns.
Advanced Threat Analysis
According to Khaled, Blackbird’s product, comprising an enterprise dashboard and a data processing engine, goes beyond simple data aggregation. The startup emphasizes its ability to intelligently structure threat data and provide more comprehensive analysis than competitors relying solely on natural language processing (NLP) and basic sentiment analysis.
Combining AI and Human Expertise
While NLP and network analysis are key components of Blackbird’s approach, the platform also considers a wider range of factors to identify threats to corporate messaging. The platform analyzes five key “signals”: Narratives, networks, cohorts, manipulation, and deception, utilizing a cluster of AI technologies for each.
However, Blackbird recognizes the importance of human expertise and offers customers access to disinformation analysts for deeper investigation.
A Composite Risk Index
“Our platform processes all five of these signals simultaneously and in near real-time, generating a composite risk index that clients can use to prioritize action-oriented information,” Khaled explains.
“We quantify the attack on human perception – essentially, a cyberattack on perception – to understand when someone is attempting to shift public opinion on a topic, person, or idea. For corporate risk, we identify when groups are attempting to drive public scrutiny against a company.”
Purpose-Built System
“We’ve dedicated ourselves to building a purpose-built system to address this problem. Unlike some competitors who have adapted existing technologies from marketing or social media, we’ve focused solely on disinformation intelligence from the outset,” Khaled asserts.
Scalability and Speed
“The biggest challenge for many organizations is scalability and speed. Some large organizations can generate the necessary signals, but it can take 10 to 12 days, making it unsuitable for timely responses. We’ve designed our platform to deliver insights in minutes or seconds.”
Expanding Applications
Beyond reputational concerns, Khaled notes that investors are also interested in using the tool for decision support, seeking a comprehensive understanding of potential manipulation attempts.
Future Development
Currently, Blackbird’s analysis focuses on identifying emergent disinformation threats (“nowcasting”). The company aims to expand into predictive threat detection, proactively preparing clients for potential information-related manipulation. However, a timeline for this feature has not been announced.
“Today, we are primarily a detection platform, but we are beginning to bridge into predictive detection. We are cautious about using the term ‘predictive’ and are focused on developing genuinely predictive capabilities,” Khaled clarifies.
“Our AI engine aims to forecast potential threats based on patterns identified from billions of posts and events, rather than simply tracking the speed of information spread.”
Differentiating Predictive Capabilities
“Simply plotting a path based on timestamps is not prediction for Blackbird. We’ve seen other organizations label that as predictive, but we disagree.”
Upcoming Features
Blackbird plans to release additional counter-measurement technologies in the first and second quarters of 2022, according to Khaled.