Ukrainian AI startup Osavul has attracted investment from the SMRK fund
Osavul, the Ukrainian AI company, raised $1 million from the SMRK venture fund in a seed round of investment.
The startup focuses on information security, countering disinformation, and information environment assessment.
Osavul was founded in March 2022 by Dmytro Pleshakov and Dmytro Bilash, who have significant experience in IT development and artificial intelligence. With the start of a full-scale Russian invasion, the team applied their skills to find a gap in disinformation analysis and countering.
It started cooperating with government agencies as volunteers. The proposed solution became the basis for creating the first version of Osavul. In 2023, the development of the company “CIB Research” became the winner in the framework of the 1991 media hackathon.
$1 million in funding will be directed towards marketing and development of the technology platform, particularly the integration of Large Language Models technologies to take the analysis of the information environment to a new level. The company plans to expand the product to international markets and cooperate with foreign companies and government organizations.
Osavul arose as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The world faced a powerful wave of propaganda and narratives discrediting Ukrainians and their struggle. In recent years, we have seen the rapid development of AI due to the emergence of Large Language Models, such as ChatGPT.
commented Dmytro Pleshakov, co-founder and CEO of Osavul.
New technologies make it easier to create and distribute any content – both textual and visual – thus increasing the risk of spreading misinformation. Therefore, state institutions and companies need new powerful technologies to counter threats related to disinformation more effectively.
Osavul aims to develop products for specialists in information and cybersecurity using the latest achievements and development in artificial intelligence technology. In particular, the company focuses on the co-pilot approach, which allows for working with larger data sets, more efficiently finding and analyzing information, and timely finding and neutralizing threats.
Osavul is founded by an exceptional team with a deep understanding of AI technology from both engineering and business perspectives. We are honoured to take part in their new endeavor.
said Vlad Tislenko, partner at SMRK VC
SMRK is a Ukrainian venture fund founded in 2013, focusing on Seed to Series B stages. It provides investments in the amount of $500,000 to $1.5 million to startups that have a clear connection to Ukraine and a high potential for positive economic, social, and environmental impact.
Osavul currently offers three products:
- CommSecure, a software platform for information environment assessment, identification, and analysis of narratives, as well as information threats in the media environment;
- CIB Guard, a module for analyzing coordinated inauthentic behaviour between accounts in media, messengers, and social networks;
- InfoOps is an integrated service where the company provides software and performs the tasks of analytics and countering disinformation. The dynamics of the spread of narratives, sources, and ways of their distribution are also monitored.
With the Osavul solution, security and communications professionals working with the public sector and the political sphere, business, non-profit organizations, security agencies, and the PR sphere can discover the necessary information, measure and find countermeasures if they pose a threat.
Osavul software was implemented and used by the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and by Ukrainian departments in the security and defence sector.
The experience and successful work results in Ukraine prompted the founders to turn the initial idea into a business organization to help democratic countries, allies of Ukraine, and companies in building resistance to disinformation.
The company has a formed senior team looking for talented engineers and specialists for further work with international partners and clients.