Ferretly, an AI social media vetting business, has acquired $2.5 million in venture funding and will create a new platform for screening election personnel. Ferretly, founded in 2019, uses AI to scan social media and publicly available web data to identify potential threats and behaviors that standard background checks may miss.
Darrin Lipscomb started the firm after previously founding Pipestream and Avrio, which were sold to BMC Software and Hitachi, respectively.
According to Lipscomb, Ferretly is designed to assist hiring managers in ensuring that the candidate they are hiring corresponds with their company's values. The goal is to avoid hiring someone who is making threats or spreading racist remarks online, just as you wouldn't hire someone who has committed a crime.
"It's really a question of character," Lipscomb added. "Your typical background check revolves around the physical world, correct? What crime happened in the physical world? As more people became interconnected and moved online, it became increasingly important to consider their digital personas. We can provide recruiting supervisors with some unique insights into this individual, specifically their character.
As we near the 2024 presidential election, Ferretly is debuting a new Election Personnel Screening Platform that screens candidates, poll workers, canvassers and other election personnel to mitigate risks of disruptive behaviors.
The election personnel screening platform assesses digital red flags, including inflammatory rhetoric or hate speech, disparaging or bullying behavior, questionable conduct like drug use, nudity or violence, and connections to extremist groups or individuals.
Ferretly recently improved its image classification tool to recognize hostile gestures like the middle finger, as well as extremist symbols like Nazi insignias and terrorist group flags. The platform can also recognize photos of weapons, such as firearms, sharp objects, and explosives.
Ferretly searches not only social media sites, but also web pages and news stories, highlighting additional information.
After scanning someone's social media and publicly available data, Ferretly generates a report that helps hiring managers to swiftly gain insights about the person. The report contains danger indicators, flagged content, and behavioral insights.
Ferretly claims to observe all federal, state, and provincial rules regarding pre-employment social media screening and data protection. Although the startup's application appears frightening, it serves as a stark reminder that everything you say online leaves a digital trail. We live in an age where people are frequently fired for their social media posts, so it's no wonder that a program like Ferretly exists.
The startup has customers in 32 countries and over 1,000 clients from a variety of industries. Some noteworthy clients include Deloitte, Blizzard Entertainment, and Paramount Global. The startup's products are also used by nonprofits, public sector organizations such as police departments, and political parties in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Canada.
Lipscomb says Ferretly also does quite a bit of influencer vetting, as brands want to make sure they aren’t hiring someone who has made hateful or threatening remarks online to represent their brand. The startup’s tools were also used by some NFL teams during the draft.
As for the new funding, Lipscomb says most of it will go toward marketing efforts to build awareness around Ferretly, while the rest will go toward research and development.
The funding was led by David Dickerson, chairman and founder of Accurate Background, a provider of employment background screening services.