media-authenticity
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Neural Defend
Neural Defend is a New York and Delhi-based cybersecurity startup building multimodal deepfake detection for enterprises. Founded in 2024 by MIT- and Intel-affiliated researchers, its proprietary AI spots AI-generated faces, manipulated video, cloned voices, and forged documents in real time - delivered as developer-friendly APIs and SDKs, plus on-premises deployments for banks, fintechs, and government. The pitch: make catching a deepfake as easy as an API call.
Piyush Verma
Piyush Verma is the co-founder and CEO of Neural Defend, an AI cybersecurity startup that detects deepfakes across video, audio, images, and real-time streams. A two-time founder and former MIT, Harvard, and Tsinghua researcher, he previously built Manush Labs, an impact accelerator backed by billionaire Desh Deshpande, and founded the MIT India Initiative. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and MIT Tata Fellow trained in design at IIT Delhi, Verma now works to defend real human identities against synthetic deception, with Neural Defend raising $600K in pre-seed funding and partnering with Zee News on India's first media-led deepfake verification system.