How Counter Disinformation Company - Refute is Combating Escalating Hybrid Warfare Threats

Refute, fighting disinformation on behalf of your organisation, detecting and responding to campaigns at the speed of the attackers, led by Tom Garnett and Vlad Galu, has raised £5m in seed funding led by Amadeus Capital Partners, with participation from Playfair, Episode 1, Osney Capital and the National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF), the UK Government's deep tech venture capital fund that invests in dual-use technologies for national security and defence. 

Refute’s founders bring more than four decades of experience in developing technologies to counter terrorism, financial crime, and threats to online trust. As hybrid warfare intensifies, adversaries are rapidly evolving tactics, combining bot networks with influencers, deploying agentic AI for end-to-end automation, and increasingly targeting commercial organizations alongside governments.

Since emerging from stealth and closing a pre-seed round in 2024, Refute has developed military-grade AI capabilities adopted by leading commercial and government customers. The platform identifies early indicators of online manipulation and delivers intelligence with recommended response strategies at attacker speed.

Refute has observed a sharp increase in disinformation threats across high-risk industries. During recent European elections, including Romania’s, coordinated influence operations were detected, with more than 32,500 inauthentic TikTok videos identified as artificially amplifying extremist candidates among expatriate communities. In the mining sector, monitoring has shown that 40% of tracked sites are targeted by fake or misleading actors.

These campaigns seek to infiltrate online discourse, undermine institutions, and erode public trust, posing significant risks to businesses, reputations, and market value.

Disinformation has evolved into a strategic weapon amid a sharp rise in hybrid warfare across Europe. As attacks accelerate through agentic AI and automated bot networks, Refute is expanding engineering, detection models, and response capabilities to help governments and businesses identify and counter emerging threats at scale.

Refute’s technology is seen as a meaningful boost to resilience against disinformation, delivering advanced dual-use capabilities that support democratic processes and collective security.

The seed round was led by Amadeus Capital Partners, reflecting confidence in Refute’s role as critical infrastructure for addressing one of the fastest-growing global risks. Rapid execution, autonomous threat detection, and response at attacker speed have driven early customer adoption, positioning the platform as a potential leader in global disinformation analytics.