At Mansion House earlier this month, attendees of the Lady Mayor’s Defence & Resilience Showcase were given virtual currency to back the technology companies they thought showed the greatest promise.
A counter-disinformation company like Refute might once have looked like the odd one out in that room, yet they came out on top; named as the best dual-use company and featuring in Sky News’ Defence Insider coverage of the event.
The showcase was the first in the series to focus on defence and national resilience. It brought technology companies together with investors, government customers, and established defence organisations against a backdrop of war in Europe, daily cyber threats, and rapidly changing methods of conflict.
Less than two weeks later, the UK Prime Minister announced the National Centre for Information Defence. Its proposed role is to detect, attribute, and disrupt hostile-state information attacks.
His announcement came with the warning that AI would only aid in the scale of disinformation campaigns. Russian agencies have already used bots, fake websites, falsified newspaper articles, and forged branding from 28 British organisations to spread false narratives and sow division.
Days later, the Government announced that CEOs and industry representatives from defence and critical national infrastructure would receive closed-door briefings on threats posed by Russia. Disinformation appeared alongside cyber attacks and sabotage as tactics used to disrupt organisations, take activity offline, and weaken trust.
A cyber attack can compromise the systems an organisation relies on. While a disinformation campaign can compromise the confidence people place in the information distributed by them.
It can make a genuine warning look questionable, manufacture the appearance of a crisis or imitate a trusted source. This comes at a time where trust in what we see online is already at an all time low with the proliferation of AI-generated content. A recent Ofcom study on news consumption and distribution found that 56% of UK adults were less trustful of an AI-written news story than one written by a person.
Communications teams may see the public narrative. Security teams may spot suspicious behaviour. Government may hold intelligence about the threat behind it. Leaders still must decide whether and how to respond.
Earlier this year we wrote that counter-disinformation was beginning to look like cybersecurity did a decade ago. These announcements back that claim.
Cybersecurity became a board-level concern when companies understood that an attack could stop the business. Information defence is following a similar path because trust affects how an organisation communicates, operates, and makes decisions under pressure.
Refute’s platform surfaces early signs of online manipulation, traces narratives as they develop, and provides intelligence and recommended responses while a campaign is still emerging. The aim is to help governments and commercial organisations act at the speed of the attackers, rather than after the false narrative has already become the crisis.
At Mansion House, trust was represented by virtual currency and allocated with a click. In the real world, it takes years to earn, minutes to weaken, and far longer to rebuild.
Protecting it has become a job for government, business, and technology working together.
Read on for more news from our portfolio and partners across Intelligence, Human, and Planet this month.
Intelligence
Altana strengthens US drone supply chains. Altana partnered with Unusual Machines to improve supplier verification, traceability, and compliance across drone-component manufacturing.
iPronics raises $125m for AI networking. Amadeus participated in iPronics’ Series B, which was co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital, with NVIDIA joining the round.
iPronics connects with Barcelona Supercomputing Center. iPronics began a two-year collaboration to integrate its programmable optical switching platform into BSC’s GPU and high-performance computing infrastructure.
Photonic proposes a C$500m semiconductor facility. Photonic unveiled Project VANGUARD, a proposed manufacturing facility in British Columbia serving quantum, AI, and defence technologies.
Photonic expands its work with Microsoft. The companies began working together to improve quantum-resource estimates and help developers understand the hardware needed for useful applications.
Pimloc adds documents to its privacy platform. Pimloc Redact expanded beyond video, audio, and images to support PDFs, emails, scanned records, and Microsoft Office files.
Two police forces select Pimloc. Surrey Police and Sussex Police signed a joint multi-year contract to use Pimloc Redact for sensitive video and audio.
A 1,000-qubit system takes shape. planqc delivered the first MAQCS hardware to the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, marking an early step towards installing its neutral-atom quantum computer.
planqc wins European recognition. planqc received a Made in Europe Award for moving neutral-atom quantum computing from research towards practical deployment.
planqc joins Germany’s quantum competition. Its LOGIQC proposal was selected to advance neutral-atom hardware and software through Germany’s national programme.
PolyAI launches an agent that improves other agents. PolyAI introduced Wren, which analyses customer conversations, identifies weak points, and tests proposed improvements before deployment.
Riverlane expands Deltakit. Riverlane launched new compile and visualisation packages to help developers build and examine quantum error-correction experiments.
Quantum error correction closes the loop. Riverlane and Qblox demonstrated a closed, real-time error-correction loop, connecting quantum-control hardware with Riverlane’s decoding technology.
Riverlane opens its US headquarters. The company established a base in Maryland’s Discovery District to support customers, partners, and government programmes.
Riverlane connects with Infleqtion. The companies signed an agreement to combine Riverlane’s Deltaflow error-correction stack with Infleqtion’s neutral-atom hardware and Superstaq software.
Sitehop expands into the US. Sitehop opened an office in Arlington, Virginia, focused on defence, national security, and critical infrastructure.
V7 connects with Affinity. V7 announced an integration that links its document-processing workflows with Affinity’s relationship-intelligence platform for investment teams.
V7 shows AI at work across investment and visual data. V7 published new customer stories on 10 East’s investment-document workflows and OpenAI’s visual-data operations.
XMOS brings voice AI to television. XMOS joined RedSquid TV’s agentic television ecosystem, adding edge voice processing to a platform designed for natural spoken interaction.
Human
iPremom raises €15m for earlier pregnancy risk prediction. Amadeus led the seed round to support clinical validation and commercial development of its first-trimester MaiRa blood-test platform.
Ori Biotech signs a 10-year manufacturing agreement. Ori secured a partnership worth up to $120m to move a commercial cell-therapy programme onto its IRO manufacturing platform.
Nuclera appoints Carl Raimond as CEO. Nuclera named Raimond as its new Chief Executive, while co-founder Michael Chen moved into the role of Chief Scientific and Business Officer.
Nanopore sequencing moves into the operating theatre. Oxford Nanopore joined an NHS brain-tumour pilot exploring whether rapid sequencing can classify tumours during surgery and support faster treatment decisions.
Oxford Nanopore joins a global rare-disease network. The company joined RISE, expanding access to genomic testing for families with unresolved genetic conditions.
Planet
Paragraf joins Korea’s graphene push. Paragraf became the only international member of the K-Graphene Commercialisation Council, supporting efforts to move graphene technologies into industry.
Three awards for Paragraf. The company was recognised for scale-up progress, international growth, and innovation, while CEO Simon Thomas was named Business Leader.
Paragraf moves beyond graphene. Paragraf became lead industrial partner in the £6.4m NEED2D programme, developing ultra-low-energy electronics using next-generation two-dimensional materials.
OKAPI models what happens when satellites break apart. OKAPI published new technical analysis on modelling satellite fragmentation and its effect on the orbital environment.
News from the team
Amelia features in The Observer on AI security. Our Partner, Amelia Armour, is quoted following her panel at the UK Private Capital Summit on keeping our data in Europe and the semiconductor market.
Anne speaks out on pension funds allocating to VC. Our co-founder and CEO, Anne Glover, joined the Founders Forum Group VC Forum to discuss how to unlock more pension fund capital for innovation and growth.
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