Trust Lab, a company dedicated to transforming online safety for companies and public entities, has successfully closed a Series A funding round, securing $15 million. The investment was led by U.S. Venture Partners (USVP) and Foundation Capital. Trust Lab’s technology utilizes AI-enabled classifiers and rules engines to detect and monitor harmful content and actors across the Internet.
By leveraging Trust Lab’s solutions, technology companies and public entities can effectively track and measure harmful content. Notable clients already benefiting from Trust Lab’s services include the European Commission/European Union, In-Q-Tel, leading social media companies, messaging platforms, and marketplaces.
Trust Lab stands out as the first company to provide a comprehensive online safety solution that combines monitoring, compliance, and enforcement of harmful and illegal content on a large scale. The company was founded by experts in Trust & Safety from major tech companies such as Google, YouTube, Reddit, and TikTok. Trust Lab employs cutting-edge AI and machine learning tools, advanced policies, and strategic partnerships to cater to a diverse range of clients, including large and small technology platforms and public entities.
Tom Siegel, Co-Founder and CEO of Trust Lab, highlights the decreasing investment in Trust & Safety by many companies and platforms, which has resulted in harmful content and actors gaining ground. Trust Lab aims to offer flexible and state-of-the-art enforcement and compliance tools to combat content that harms users, particularly the most vulnerable ones.
The Trust Lab team has been at the forefront of technical innovation in executive leadership roles for over a decade, and with their advanced AI and ML tools, their customers are making significant strides in addressing Internet abuse at scale.
Dafina Toncheva, an early-stage investor at USVP, emphasizes the trust placed in Trust Lab by government organizations, top social media platforms, and enterprise customers who seek to create a safer online environment for users.
Toncheva acknowledges Trust Lab’s expertise in applying ML and AI technology to prevent harmful misinformation and combat bad actors, highlighting their importance in countering harm across the Internet. Toncheva sees significant growth potential in this vast market and believes Trust Lab is at the forefront of leading the way.
Steve Vassallo, General Partner at Foundation Capital, comments on the limitations of current approaches to moderating harmful content, which heavily rely on Trust & Safety teams employing tens of thousands of people. Vassallo believes that the only scalable and effective way to address content safety is through technology like Trust Lab’s.
This aligns with Foundation Capital’s focus on investing in technology-driven companies dedicated to security, privacy, and Internet trust and safety.