L1ght, an Israeli startup using AI to detect and filter harmful online content to protect children, has raised a $15 million seed round co-led by Mangrove Capital Partners and Tribeca Venture Partners, with participation from Western Technology Investment.
Headquartered in Tel Aviv with an office in San Francisco, the company has developed technology that can detect and predict toxic content in online text, audio, videos, or images. “Toxic content” includes (and is not limited to) cyberbullying, harmful content, hate speech, and predatory behavior. “As both a father and entrepreneur, L1ght’s mission statement is very personal to me,” said co-founder and CEO Zohar Levkovitz. “My co-founder Ron Porat and I started L1ght because we saw the dangers our children were facing online and felt not enough has been done to address these problems.” Built on proprietary algorithms, the L1ght platform is essentially a one-stop shop for customers who want to monitor and protect an online community, such as social networks, communication apps, gaming platforms, and hosting providers. The majority of its current clients are off the record. The algorithms were designed by a multidisciplinary team of cybersecurity experts, data scientists, psychologists, and anthropologists. According to L1ght, this approach gives its product an edge when compared to standard mathematical-based AI and content moderation tools. L1ght can read context and flag material that is specifically harmful to kids.
Founded in 2018, the company will use this hefty seed round for further research and development, and to scale the platform to meet market demand.
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