Dominic Sparkes

Checkstep

Our life is increasingly digital. Checkstep helps users adapt to this digital lifestyle by making the Internet a place where humanity is thriving. Checkstep provides online platforms with a Software as a Service solution that automates content moderation processes. The platform offers better visibility of trust and safety workflows using AI-first tools. Checkstep was founded in 2020 by serial entrepreneur Guillaume Bouchard, Facebook's former AI Integrity Manager in London, who successfully exited his first business, Bloomsbury AI, to Facebook in 2018, and by Jonathan Manfield, former Software Engineering Lead at JP Morgan with an initial focus on misinformation. The founders soon realized that the mission of creating an inclusive internet involves addressing all potential forms of online harm from hate speech, child sexual abuse material (CSAM) to terrorist propaganda. The company is backed by influential personalities of the tech industry from the U.S. and U.K., but also investors from France, Bulgaria and Singapore are backing Checkstep, including many previous founders of online platforms, such as Joe White MBE, co-founder of Moonfruit.com and British Consul General in San Francisco, Jon Oringer who founded Shutterstock, a leading stock photography provider, as well as technology specialists, such as William Tunstall-Pedoe, who founded Evi, which became Amazon Alexa, and Diana Hu, who leads the AR platform at Niantic the company behind Pokemon Go.