Refute lands £5m seed to detect and neutralise disinformation with AI
This article covers Refute, a legaltech startup that has raised £5m in a seed funding round led by Amadeus Capital Partners to accelerate development of tools that detect and respond to disinformation and hybrid warfare targeting governments and commercial organisations. The funding is intended to help governments and commercial organisations detect and respond earlier to coordinated disinformation campaigns.
Refute, a legaltech startup, has raised £5m in a seed funding round led by Amadeus Capital Partners to accelerate development of tools that detect and respond to disinformation and hybrid warfare targeting governments and commercial organisations. The funding comes as automated influence campaigns and agentic AI increase the speed and scale of online manipulation, making early detection a strategic priority.
Why it matters
Disinformation is shifting from nuisance to weapon. Threat actors now combine bot networks, coordinated influencer activity and automated AI tools to shape online narratives quickly and at scale. For companies, the consequences include reputational damage, disrupted operations and market risk; for governments, there are direct threats to democratic processes.
Refute positions itself as an early-warning system that surfaces manipulation before it becomes a crisis. That capability matters because organisations that can detect and respond sooner are better able to protect customers, staff and shareholder value.
Inside the product
Refute says it has built "military-grade" detection tools that identify early-stage signals of organised manipulation and recommend response strategies at the pace of attackers. Since leaving stealth and closing a pre-seed round in 2024, the company reports adoption by both government and commercial customers.
The firm highlights specific findings to illustrate the problem space: it has flagged more than 32,500 inauthentic TikTok videos that amplified extremist candidates during European elections and detected that 40% of the mines it tracks are subject to fake or misleading actors. Those figures point to both breadth and sector-specific risk where coordinated narratives seek to infiltrate conversations and erode institutional trust.
Who are the investors?
The £5m seed round was led by Amadeus Capital Partners and included participation from Playfair, Episode 1, Osney Capital and the government-backed National Security Strategic Investment Fund.
Amadeus had previously backed Refute at pre-seed and is continuing support as the company scales its engineering and detection capabilities. Playfair, Episode 1 and Osney Capital are established early-stage investors; the National Security Strategic Investment Fund brings a government-aligned perspective on national resilience and critical dual-use technology.
In the announcement, James Baker, Principal at Amadeus Capital Partners, said:
We're delighted to lead Refute's seed round, having originally invested at the pre-seed, to support the business building what we see as critical infrastructure for the future of a well-functioning society. Disinformation is one of the fastest growing risks globally for governments and enterprises. Tom and Vlad have demonstrated their ability to execute quickly and build a world leading set of capabilities which detects and responds to threats autonomously at the speed of the attackers. This is hugely valuable and is being demonstrated already with a significant pace of adoption from customers. We couldn't be more excited to join this journey to build the dominant disinformation analytics product globally.
In the announcement, Spokesperson, National Security Strategic Investment Fund, said:
We are pleased to support Refute, a UK company whose technology significantly strengthens our resilience against disinformation. Refute is developing advanced, dual-use capabilities that can help safeguard democratic processes and ensure our collective security.
If you're researching potential backers in this space:
- Explore our list of legaltech venture capital firms in the UK
- Browse our directory of legaltech angel investors in the UK
Founder perspective
In the announcement, Tom Garnett, Co-founder & CEO at Refute, said:
Refute was created to meet this moment. We help governments and commercial organisations strengthen their resilience, protect their operations, and outpace their adversaries to function in an increasingly hostile information environment.
In the announcement, Vlad Galu, Co-founder & CTO at Refute, said:
The velocity of disinformation attacks has surged as threat actors adopt agentic AI, automated bot infrastructure and increasingly sophisticated influence tactics. This funding enables us to grow our engineering organisation, expand our detection models and advance our response capabilities across European markets. By accelerating innovation, we will increase our capacity to detect and neutralise emerging threats at exponentially growing scales.
The founders emphasise engineering scale and model development as priorities. That focus aligns with the need to automate detection across high-volume platforms and to provide actionable intelligence to response teams.
The bigger picture
Refute's raise sits at the intersection of national security and corporate risk management. The involvement of a government-backed fund alongside private venture investors signals rising appetite among legaltech and security-focused investors for tools that protect information integrity.
For UK and European organisations facing increasingly sophisticated hybrid threats, the market for detection and response tools looks set to grow. This round is part of a broader trend where startups build defensive infrastructure to counter fast-moving, automated disinformation campaigns, and where public and private capital increasingly collaborate to fund such capabilities.
They've invested in Refute
Get to know these legaltech investors
| Investor | Sector | Stage | Activity | Team | Connect |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Amadeus Capital Partners | 16 investments investments | 11 contacts contacts | |||
 Playfair Capital (Playfair) | 12 investments investments | 4 contacts contacts | |||
 Episode 1 Ventures (Episode 1) | 47 investments investments | 5 contacts contacts | |||
 Osney Capital | 2 investments investments | 3 contacts contacts | |||
 National Security Strategic Investment Fund | 2 investments investments | more info |
Click here for a full list of 7,526+ startup investors in the UK