GetReal AI Deepfakes: $18M Funding & Impressive Clients

The Growing Threat of Deepfakes and a New Detection Solution

The increasing sophistication of deepfakes represents a significant and troubling consequence of advancements in artificial intelligence. Companies are already experiencing substantial financial losses, amounting to millions of dollars, due to scams leveraging these manipulated media. Furthermore, the potential ramifications for national security are considerable.

Introducing GetReal: A Deepfake Detection Platform

A new company, GetReal, is addressing this challenge with a comprehensive toolset designed for both governmental organizations and large enterprises. Their platform aims to identify and prevent the use of deepfakes and impersonations across audio, video, and image formats. The company is announcing a new round of funding alongside the launch of its services.

GetReal has secured $17.5 million in equity funding. This capital will be allocated to further research and development, expanding their team through strategic hiring, and bolstering business development efforts.

Key Features of the GetReal Forensics Platform

The company is now offering its forensics platform as a service, providing multiple access points. These include a user-friendly web interface, a robust API, and seamless integrations for on-demand media analysis.

The platform boasts several core functionalities:

• A threat exposure dashboard for real-time monitoring.
• An “Inspect” tool focused on protecting prominent executives from being impersonated.
• A “Protect” tool designed to proactively screen incoming media.
• “Respond,” a service leveraging GetReal’s expert teams for in-depth investigation.

Investment and Incubation

Forgepoint Capital, specializing in cybersecurity and AI investments, led this Series A funding round. Additional participation came from Ballistic Ventures, Evolution Equity, and K2 Access Fund.

Ballistic Ventures played a crucial role in GetReal’s development. The company was incubated by Ballistic from 2022 before publicly launching in June 2024. Ballistic also spearheaded GetReal’s initial $7 million seed funding round.

Leadership and Expertise

The firm’s founder, Ted Schlein, serves as the chairman and co-founder of GetReal. Prior to establishing Ballistic Ventures, Schlein held a leadership position at Kleiner Perkins. GetReal was also co-founded by Hany Farid, a recognized pioneer in the field of deepfake detection.

GetReal: Cyber Forensics as a Service

GetReal operates within the cybersecurity landscape, focusing specifically on the rapidly developing field of cyber-forensics. The company, based in San Mateo, addresses a significant market need: a shortage of skilled professionals and specialized knowledge in this domain.

According to Matt Moynahan, GetReal’s CEO, the demand for forensic expertise is poised to increase dramatically. “If cybersecurity currently faces a personnel deficit, prepare for an even greater shortage in forensics,” he stated.

Moynahan joined GetReal while the company was still operating in stealth mode, bringing with him a 30-year career of leadership roles at prominent cybersecurity firms including Symantec, Arbor Networks, Veracode, and Forcepoint.

He characterizes the potential for creating and deploying malicious deepfakes as a particularly concerning threat. “Frankly, I haven’t encountered a threat as widespread as this one,” Moynahan explained.

He contrasts this with earlier threats like viruses, describing them as relatively “novel.” The evolution of threats has increasingly targeted individual users. The proliferation of user-friendly deepfake creation tools, coupled with the increasing digitization of businesses, contributes to this challenge. “Businesses have transitioned from physical locations to predominantly digital and cloud-based operations.”

Moynahan points to the success of phishing attacks as evidence that even highly intelligent individuals are susceptible to deception. This, combined with other factors, indicates a potentially troubling future trajectory.

GetReal was founded by Farid, a renowned academic at UC Berkeley and a pioneer in the development of methods for detecting manipulation in digital images. He was anticipating the risks associated with deepfakes even before the term became commonplace.

Farid explained to TechCrunch that he has been applying his research informally for years, providing services to media outlets, legal teams (following the acceptance of digital images as evidence in court), and other organizations. In 2022, he partnered with Schlein to explore the possibility of transforming this expertise into a viable business, codifying the investigative process.

“There is no one analyzing this issue with the depth of understanding that Hany possesses,” Moynahan emphasized. “However, Hany’s individual capacity is limited. Our goal was to essentially replicate ‘Hany’ as a scalable service delivered through the cloud.”

Interestingly, Farid notes that while the technology they are developing is influenced by the evolution of new applications – requiring substantial reverse engineering – it is also grounded in foundational knowledge that has remained remarkably consistent over time.

“Techniques we developed two decades ago continue to be effective today,” he revealed, declining to elaborate on the specifics. “While complete transparency isn’t necessary, achieving accurate results is a complex undertaking.”

GetReal Secures Funding Amidst Rising Deepfake Concerns

The announcement of GetReal’s Series A funding round on Wednesday highlights significant backing from strategic investors. These include Cisco Investments, Capital One Ventures, and In-Q-Tel, a firm with close ties to the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to Alberto Yépez, co-founder of Forgepoint and lead investor, this investor group reflects the companies already showing interest in, or actively implementing, GetReal’s technology.

Due diligence revealed a strong demand for this type of product within heavily regulated sectors. Financial institutions, in particular, were proactively seeking solutions, driven by mandates from their boards of directors.

Deepfake impersonations were a key concern, with reports of CEOs being targeted in voice-based interviews. Both impersonations of executives and successful deception by impersonations were documented. Current clients include prominent organizations like John Deere and Visa.

Government agencies also demonstrate a clear need for GetReal’s capabilities. They have specific requirements in addressing the risks posed by malicious actors utilizing fabricated information.

These governmental “priorities” center on preventing intelligence agencies and officials from being manipulated into taking, or refraining from, actions based on deceptive, artificially created content.

Currently, GetReal’s focus remains on audio and video impersonations; text-based impersonation detection is not yet supported.

However, the recent incident involving The Atlantic editor added to a Signal group chat discussing a potential military operation in Yemen brought the issue of text-based deepfakes into sharp focus. Initially believed to be a hoax, the chat proved to be authentic and a breach of security protocols.

Hany Farid, a GetReal representative, acknowledged that text-based analysis presents unique challenges. He described it as “a different beast” compared to audio and video. The company intends to expand its scope over time to encompass all forms of deepfake and impersonation threats.