Set up to identify fake news and social media bot accounts, Astroscreen has attracted UCL Technology Fund for its first funding round.
UK-based fake social media activity detection company Astroscreen has obtained $1m in an initial funding round co-led by UCL Technology Fund, the university venture fund focused on University College London (UCL) technologies, TechCrunch has reported.
Venture capital firm Speedinvest co-led the transaction, alongside the publicly-funded London Co-Investment Fund, Luminous Ventures and AISeed.
Founded in 2018, Astroscreen has created a platform that combines machine learning technology with the abilities of disinformation analysts to contextualise attempts on social media to disseminate fake news and run bogus accounts.
The platform focuses on techniques such as linguistic fingerprinting and identifying bot networks, while detecting collective anomalies in social media behaviour.
While fake news has garnered controversy for its ability to influence the public, such disinformation can also hugely discredit a company’s brand, undermining its market value.
The funding will be used for further product development. The company’s chief technology officer is Juan Echeverria, a former PhD student at UCL whose work focused on fake social media accounts, including the uncovering of a botnet responsible for controlling 350,000 Twitter accounts.
UCL Technology Fund is co-managed by tech transfer office UCL Business with Albion VC, the venturing arm of investment firm Albion Capital. Global University Venturing published an in-depth look at the fund in its October 2018 issue.
