From TechCrunch
Has GetReal cracked the code on AI deepfakes? $18M and an impressive client list say yes
By Ingrid Lunden
The proliferation of scarily realistic deepfakes is one of the more pernicious by-products of the rise of AI, and falling victim to scams based on these deepfakes is already costing companies millions of dollars — not to mention the implications these could have on national security. A startup that’s built a toolset aimed at governments and enterprises to help detect and halt deepfakes and impersonations in audio, video, and still images is announcing some funding Wednesday with some impressive customers and investors in tow.
GetReal — co-founded by Hany Farid, one of the pioneers in detecting deepfake media — has raised $17.5 million in equity, funding that it will be using for R&D, hiring, and business development...
GetReal is the brainchild of Farid, a longtime, well-known academic (currently at UC Berkeley) who is considered a pioneer in techniques for identifying when digital images have been doctored. Arguably, Farid was understanding the risks of deepfakes before the term had even come into existence.
As Farid explained it to TechCrunch, while working primarily as an academic and researcher, he’s been applying his learnings more or less informally for years as a service to media organizations, legal teams (after digital images became admissible in court), and others. In 2022, he came together with Schlein to consider how to translate that into an actual business, turning that investigative process into code.
“No one’s peering into this the way that Hany does,” Moynahan said. “But Hany can’t scale. So we basically took Hany and tried to create a ‘Hany service’ in the cloud...”
Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley.
