CEO and co-founder Dan Purcell. Image: Ceartas
Founded by Dan Purcell in 2020, Ceartas is on a mission to help creators and enterprises affected by deepfakes and piracy to ‘take back what’s rightfully theirs’.
Ceartas, the Dublin start-up that uses AI to provide copyright protection for content creators, has raised $4.5m in seed funding led by Earlybird Venture Capital and Upside, a venture fund operated by popular YouTube group The Sidemen.
The former Start-up of the Week was founded by Dublin-born Dan Purcell in 2020, after some of his personal content was leaked online.
“We essentially use AI to automatically detect, validate and remove infringing or problematic content,” Purcell told SiliconRepublic.com last year, while speaking about the scarcity of legal protections for adult content creators on platforms such as OnlyFans.
Along with the latest seed funding announced yesterday (30 April), Purcell also revealed that Jonathan Smyth, the chief technology officer of Ceartas, will now join him as co-founder.
“This funding marks a pivotal step in our mission, with Ceartas poised to revolutionise the anti-piracy, IP (intellectual property) protection and deepfake protection spaces,” Purcell said. “By expanding our cutting-edge AI solutions into the enterprise sector, we are further solidifying our commitment to safeguarding the world’s best IP and brands from abuse and misuse.”
The seed round also saw funding from some notable angel investors, including Thomas Hesse, Andrej Henkler, Michele Attisani, Niccolo Maisto and Ryan Morrison.
Expansion into enterprise
Ceartas was one of seven start-ups that pitched their business ideas the NDRC Demo Day at Dogpatch Labs last year. Around the time, the start-up was named the official safety partner of OnlyFans and had formed partnerships with major movie and TV show distributors across the Middle East and Asia.
“[We want] to protect all users who have a digital presence from manipulation, be it via stolen content or artificially generated content such as deepfakes,” Purcell said at the time.
Raised in Donegal, Purcell is an engineer by background with more than 15 years of experience. Before founding Ceartas, he spent eight years working across Big Tech such as Apple and Google in California.
“Since our inception, Ceartas has been dedicated to protecting thousands of content creators, especially those who are often overlooked, such as OnlyFans creators. Built on a foundation of empathy, our mission remains steadfast in its commitment to all content creators,” he said yesterday.
“As we expand into the enterprise market, we are doubling down on this promise. We are excited to enhance our offerings and will soon unveil some incredible new services available at Ceartas.io, designed to provide even stronger protections and support for content creators across all platforms.”
Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
