• Ukrainian AI startup OSavul secured $1 million in a funding round led by venture capital fund SMRK.
• Created in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the startup specializes in information security, combating disinformation and assessing the information environment.
• Funding will be used to incorporate extensive language models to improve information environment analysis capabilities and further develop its platform.
The Ukrainian startup was founded in March 2022 by Ukrainian entrepreneurs Dmytro Pleshakov and Dmytro Bilash, after Russia invaded Ukraine.
“We use AI to analyze both content and behavioral signals and identify malicious activities such as disinformation campaigns or influence operations. We consider various factors such as temporal patterns of activity, account coordination, promoted stories, etc. “, Pleshakov and Bilash told The Recursive in a statement.
Both founders have significant experience in the field of IT development and artificial intelligence. With the start of a large-scale Russian invasion, they applied their skills to find a gap in analysis and countering disinformation and began to cooperate with government agencies as volunteers.
“The first challenge is the scale of information operations. Over the past six months, Ukraine has experienced more than 250 disinformation attacks. Russia distributes information on different platforms and websites, in closed online communities. Given such scale, it is difficult to identify threats before they become too significant. We use AI to solve problems at scale. It is also worth noting the high level of sophistication of disinformation campaigns, involving different platforms: both public (Twitter, media) and private (communities in Telegram), different languages and different tactics,” explain the two co-founders.
“OSavul is founded by an exceptional team with a deep understanding of AI technology from an engineering and business perspective. We are honored to participate in their new project,” says Vlad Tislenko, partner at SMRK VC, a Ukrainian fund that focuses on Seed to Series B stages for startups with a clear connection to Ukraine and strong economic potential, social, and environmental impact.
The startup currently offers three products: CommSecure, a software platform for assessing, identifying and analyzing the information environment, as well as information threats in the media environment; CIB Guard, a module for analyzing inauthentic behavior coordinated between accounts in the media, messaging and social networks; and InfoOps, an integrated service when the company both provides software and performs analysis and countering disinformation tasks.
Through the platform, security and communications professionals working with the public sector and political sphere, businesses, non-profit organizations, security agencies and the public relations sphere can discover the necessary information, measure and find countermeasures if they pose a threat.
Contributing to NATO-Ukraine relations
OSavul’s tools have already countered several cases of disinformation originating from Russia. In November 2022, OSavul uncovered a campaign aimed at discrediting the Ukrainian armed forces, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health and NATO countries.
The post on social media said that “NATO countries supplied Ukraine with canned blood infected with HIV, hepatitis B and C and other infections that could lead to an epidemic among the Ukrainian military personnel.
“The publications were accompanied by documents allegedly signed by the Minister of Health of Ukraine and obtained with the help of the Kombatant hacker group. OSavul’s task was to detect the threat as early as possible and have it analyzed by security experts in order to make the right decision to counter the threat. In fact, all this was and still is false from the beginning: NATO never provided blood donations. Above all, the campaign was aimed at discrediting NATO in Ukraine, trying to create distrust between Ukrainians and NATO partners and trying to intimidate the population inside the country, “recall Pleshakov and Bilash.
According to them, this particular case was dangerous because it was supposed to have a double impact: on military and humanitarian issues inside the country, as well as an external impact in terms of geopolitical issues and cooperation with the allies of the Ukraine.
As a result, the Ukrainian Health Ministry refuted the information – and the quick response helped prevent the potential threat and impact of the campaign on the public at the early stages, Bilash and Pleshakov point out.
As the new geopolitical reality sets in, over the past year, tech startups from the region and beyond have provided many solutions which include the use of AI, drones and cybersecurity, while war and defense the technology industry is accelerating.