Factmata takes on fake news and wins bigly
by Startacus Admin
As the saying goes, you better check yourself before you wreck somebody’s career with your inexcusable ignorance and misinformation. It’s definitely something like that, anyway.
If only there were some sort of state-of-the-art fact-checking system that uses machine intelligence to protect people from misleading information…
Developed at University College London and University of Sheffield, Factmata is that state-of-the-art fact-checking system, built by a team of machine learning and natural language processing researchers to help people in this world of fake news, fake fake news, and politicians and world leaders who lie to the camera so blatantly you might even start to doubt your own knowledge that it’s a lie!
Primarily, and for the moment, Factmata is for statistical claims made in digital media content - the examples being news articles and political speech transcripts. 
Fact-checking is not always easy, the lies and mistaken claims people tell and make not always obvious and straightforward. This can result in either an unwillingness to do the research necessary to research the truth or overlooking things. Often the only people who make the effort to fact check are the media, who may already be mistrusted. By automating the process of fact checking, using artificial intelligence built with cutting-edge academic research in natural information processing and information retrieval, fact-checking suddenly becomes easier and more accurate (unless you want to fact-check an article about Skynet).
And it seems that apart from building a state-of-the-art fact-checking system, the founders of Factmata are pretty good at pitching too. They reportedly just last week 
secured $750k in Seed funding when Founder and CEO Dhruv Gulati wrote an introduction email directly to billionaire investor Mark Cuban who then participated in its seed round, alongside Mark Pincus Founder of Zynga and Brightmail founder Sunil Paul - nice work.
Factmata’s pitching also convinced Google (via the Google Digital News Initiative) to grant them €50,000 as part of its drive to help fund fact-checking businesses in 2016, because false information and fake news can range from a little annoying (like false claims that your favourite comedian is dead) to outright dangerous (remember the Pizzagate shooting?).
Anything that helps counteract these insidious new perils of the digital age is welcome and sorely needed.
Subscribe to our newsletter
If you would like to receive our startup themed newsletter, full of the latest startup opportunities, events, news, stories, tips and advice, then sign up here.
London startup Soldo, is aiming to streamline the entire business expense cycle –from payment to reconciliation.
Don’t worry if your business died. You just got a step closer to entrepreneurial heaven says Richard Myers, Commercial Director at Transmit Start-Ups.
SupplyCompass, a design-to-delivery sourcing platform that provides an efficient and sustainable solution for global supply chains, agrees a £1.5m seed fund deal.
Apprenticeship startup WhiteHat raises $16m Series A led by Index Ventures and prepares to expand its alternative to university.
How can women effectively challenge gender bias in the workplace? Hayley Mackenzie from Boiler Guide, shares here thoughts and experience.
The app that's aiming to help us to take the first step in reversing climate change...
The startup that's providing Nursing Home residents with additional meaningful social interactions provided by local people!
Some easy and inexpensive ways to make your start-up more secure.
The vidiCREW app is on a mission to show your wedding through the eyes of your loved ones. How does it work?
The Startup Leadership Program continues to grow, inviting applications for its 9th London cohort to join the six-month program.
Published on: 12th September 2017
If you would like to enable commenting via your Startacus account, please enable Disqus functionality in your Account Settings.
- Startup Leadership Program invites applications for its 9th London cohort 12th Jul 2019 The Startup Leadership Program continues to grow, inviting applications for its 9th London cohort to join the six-month program.
- Latest Zinc Company Builder Programme to transform the quality of later life 9th Jul 2019 Do you want to build a new purpose-driven startup with support from a world-class network of experts?
- HealthTech startups sought for Greater Manchester Future of Health Challenge 4th Jul 2019 The Greater Manchester Future of Health Challenge is on the hunt for innovative healthtech startups and scaleups...
- Seedrs FMCG Accelerator Programme to help 10 UK-based FMCG businesses 3rd Jul 2019 Seedrs have launched their first FMCG Accelerator Programme dedicated to helping up to 10 UK-based FMCG businesses raise capital.
