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.
Innovative startups are currently being sought by BMW Group Financial Services UK which has just launched the third instalment of its Innovation Lab
Starting a business can be a lot of hard work, so here's a few ways to avoid burnout and find a healthy work life balance.
At one-day event Ideation NI Thon, students will get the chance to solve global and local sustainability, environmental, city and health problems.
NI startup ESTHER, a peer-2-peer giving platform allowing charitable donors to give money directly to people living in poverty, head to New York for a 4-day fact finding mission.
The lowdown on how an Australian startup generated global sales for their innovative product, "weighted blankets"...
At 82% the UK takes 4th place in the list of countries being most ready for automation and robotics, whilst 30% of UK population’s jobs are at risk of automation.
The innovative game, eQuoo that helps users build their emotional fitness and thereby help fight their mental illness
The London-based femtech startup that is using AI and genetic testing to provide a tailored oral contraception service for women
Recent research by Starling bank shows that in 2019, women earned up to £12,319 less per year than their male colleagues of the same age and within the same industry
Brandtech group, You & Mr Jones, has invested in ethical video startup Good-Loop who have closed a US $1.6m seed funding round.
Published on: 12th September 2017
.png)
If you would like to enable commenting via your Startacus account, please enable Disqus functionality in your Account Settings.
- Ideation NI Thon at NI Science Festival sets out to solve global issues 17th Jan 2020 At one-day event Ideation NI Thon, students will get the chance to solve global and local sustainability, environmental, city and health problems.
- NI startup ESTHER takes flight to New York 16th Jan 2020 NI startup ESTHER, a peer-2-peer giving platform allowing charitable donors to give money directly to people living in poverty, head to New York for a 4-day fact finding mission.
- 2019 stats show that the gender pay gap continues 14th Jan 2020 Recent research by Starling bank shows that in 2019, women earned up to £12,319 less per year than their male colleagues of the same age and within the same industry
- Digital DNA Awards 2020 nominations now open 13th Jan 2020 The Digital DNA Awards, held in partnership with MCS Group, celebrate the best tech talent, from companies of all sizes, excelling in the world of Digital and Tech and not just in NI...
