Truepic Raises $26 Million Series B Financing Led by M12 - Microsoft's Venture Fund to Scale World's Most Secure Camera Technology
Truepic Accelerates its Mission to Restore Trust in Digital Imagery
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Truepic, the world's leader in secure camera technology, announced it has raised $26 Million in Series B funding, led by M12 – Microsoft's Venture Fund. The round marks one of the most ambitious investments to-date focused on restoring trust in digital media across the internet. In addition to M12, Adobe, Sony Innovation Fund by IGV1, Hearst Ventures, and individuals from Stone Point Capital participated in the round. The investment will help expedite the scale of Truepic's patented camera technology across applications and smartphones globally.
The pioneer of the 'provenance-based' approach to media authentication, Truepic has quickly established itself a leader in the emerging truth-technology sector, having verified millions of photos and videos captured from over 150 countries around the world. As 'cheapfakes' (image editing, manipulation, repurposing) and deepfakes (AI-generated synthetic media) become ubiquitous, identifying all manipulated media has become increasingly difficult and, in most cases, near-impossible. Rather than trying to detect what is fake, Truepic's camera technology proves what is real. Truepic's patented secure camera technology acquires high-integrity "provenance" data (origin, contents, and metadata) about photos and videos from the moment they are captured and uses strong cryptography to protect the images from tampering before they reach the intended recipients. Long term, the provenance-approach to verification is the most effective way to establish trust in all digital content shared across the internet.
"The truth technology industry is in early innings, and solutions meant to detect manipulated photos and videos will fall flat as bad actors continuously improve the quality of their deception and synthetic media," said M12 principal James Wu. "Pipelines for assuring the source and integrity of media through each lifecycle phase—from capture to editing and dissemination—will be key. Truepic is best positioned to cover the full value chain as the leader in media provenance."
Truepic's technology is used by 100+ enterprise customers and partners such as Accion Opportunity Fund, Equifax, EXL Service Inc, Ford Motor Company, Palomar Holdings Inc., Transunion, United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and many more. In 2020, Truepic revenues grew by over 300% as a result of dramatic client growth across the insurance, banking, automotive, peer-to-peer commerce, project management, and international development industries.
"The explosion of deceptive visual media online has bred an incredible amount of distrust among consumers and businesses alike, threatening private enterprise through fraud and brand degradation," said Jeffrey McGregor, CEO of Truepic. "As the tools to generate entirely synthetic photos and videos continue to become widely available, this distrust will continue to grow, ultimately casting doubt around the authenticity of all digital media. We are thrilled to have a powerhouse group of investors to help us scale our technology and expedite our fight against visual deception and fraud."
"Adobe and Truepic's shared commitment to increasing online transparency has resulted in powerful partnerships on the Adobe-led Content Authenticity Initiative and Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). Truepic's technology is critical in our ability to enable digital image provenance, and their unique ability to capture secure media makes their platform unparallel in the market. We're delighted to support their efforts in tackling this important issue, and are excited to continue our work together to restore trust online," said Will Allen, Vice President of Product, Adobe.
Truepic is a founding-member of the world's first media authentication standards body, the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), alongside steering committee members including Adobe, Arm, BBC, Intel, Microsoft and Twitter. Increasing collaboration amongst technology partners will lay important groundwork for a trusted visual ecosystem across the internet.
"Widely adopted by insurers, lenders and financial firms to digitize their workflow and increase their operational efficiency, Truepic takes a deeply integrated approach to image provenance by securing the pipeline from capture to usage," said Gen Tsuchikawa, Chief Investment Manager for Sony Innovation Fund (SIF) and CEO and Chief Investment Officer for Innovation Growth Ventures (IGV). "Our investment in Truepic further builds upon SIF's portfolio of authentication, identification and trust-enabling start-ups, and we look forward to the company further growing across industry verticals and geographies."
About Truepic
Founded in 2015, Truepic develops the world's most secure camera technology for mobile devices. Truepic is the pioneer of secure media provenance through its patented Controlled Capture technology, which empowers viewers to make better-informed decisions through high integrity photos & videos. The Truepic team is dedicated to restoring trust in every pixel of consequence, with the goal of having a shared sense of visual reality across the internet.
1 *Innovation Growth Ventures Co., Ltd. (IGV) is managed by Sony Innovation Fund and Daiwa Capital Holdings.
SOURCE Truepic
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