Neuramancer AI Solutions GmbH (formerly Neuraforge) has
closed a €1.7 million pre-seed funding round led by Vanagon Ventures, with participation from Bayern Kapital and a group
of additional venture capital firms and business angels. The investment
consortium also includes the Nuremberg-based ZOHO.VC and family office Lightfield
Equity. In addition, the founding team is supported by senior executives from
the financial services and big-tech sectors, as well as experienced platform
founders acting as business angels.
Deepfakes and other forms of AI-generated media
manipulation are increasingly recognised as a risk for both businesses and
society. According to the German Insurance Association (GdV), insurance fraud
results in billions of euros in damages each year, with generative AI
contributing to new forms of manipulation, such as altered damage images and
manipulated video calls. As AI models continue to improve, identifying such
forgeries is becoming more challenging.
Based on several years of research, Neuramancer has
developed a detection technology designed to identify statistical
irregularities in image and video noise. The system focuses on structural
artifacts rather than semantic content, which the company says enables it to
detect manipulations that may be difficult to identify using conventional
AI-based detection methods.
In addition to detection, the platform generates forensic
analysis reports that show how and where media may have been altered, providing
insights that can support fraud investigation and prevention.
Co-founder Anika Gruner said the market for deepfake
detection is still in its early stages but is expected to grow significantly in
the coming years, while regulatory requirements for transparent and trustworthy
AI systems are also increasing.
While many providers rely on intransparent black-box
models, we pursue a scientifically grounded, fully transparent approach. For
us, it is clear: European, explainable AI will become a strategic competitive
advantage for companies that need to protect themselves against synthetic
manipulation.
The new funding will be used to scale Neuramancer’s
deepfake detection platform, expand the company’s team, and support
commercialisation and market expansion, with an initial focus on the insurance
industry.