Q&A

NAME: PeakMetrics

FOUNDERS: Nick Loui & Bobby Lincoln

LOCATION: Los Angeles, California

Q: Can you describe your technology?

Nick Loui: At PeakMetrics, we provide a narrative intelligence platform that helps governments and enterprises identify and combat emerging online narrative threats in real-time. We leverage machine learning technology to analyze over 1.5 million media sources and social media platforms to identify media manipulation and adversarial attacks before they cause damage.

Organizations use PeakMetrics to discern source credibility, understand how audiences spread narratives, and quantify risk and response scenarios — without spending millions on crisis communication and manual sentiment analysis.

Q: What problem does PeakMetrics help the military solve?

Loui: The resurgence of near-peer adversaries as a primary threat to national security and the emergence of generative AI has resulted in more frequent, cheaper, and scalable media manipulation, information operations, and influence attacks. Our DoD teams face an overwhelming firehose of data and insufficient capabilities to identify and prioritize the insights relevant to their mission.

PeakMetrics is a dual-use data analytics and machine learning platform that scans and summarizes the information environment to discover foreign malign influence and enable continuous assessments. The company’s narrative identification technology automatically identifies the key themes and trends in large datasets in real-time and across multiple languages, enabling faster data-to-decision processes and lowering costs. PeakMetrics’ capabilities empower DoD teams to compete with adversaries in the information environment and mitigate malign influence.

Q: When did you get involved with NSIN?

Loui: PeakMetrics was first introduced to NSIN while participating in the Air Force Accelerator Powered by Techstars. In 2020, PeakMetrics won the NSIN Countering COVID-19 Disinformation challenge. Since then, we have won and executed two [Small Business Innovation Research] SBIR Phase II awards. The resulting capabilities have been commercialized in both the private and public sectors. We also participated in the NSIN Propel New York 2022 program.

Q: How did NSIN help your company in its growth?

Loui: NSIN has played a pivotal role in PeakMetrics' growth, including introducing us to the SBIR Phase II champion stakeholder and participating in pilot programs with DoD/USG organizations. This collaboration has provided continuous exposure to potential customers within the defense and government sectors. Thanks to NSIN, we've established key connections and strengthened our position in the dynamic landscape of government and defense technology.

Q: Since your time with NSIN, what has your company been up to?

Loui: Since our time with NSIN, we’ve announced $5 million in seed funding to combat online narrative threats. This funding will allow our team to meet the rapidly growing demand for proactive narrative intelligence tools, support an expansion of PeakMetrics’ go-to-market function, and deepen our product capabilities for government and commercial clients.

We have won, executed, and commercialized two AFWERX SBIR Phase II awards within the private and public sector. Today, PeakMetrics has operational contracts with several Intelligence and Information Operations teams to support continuous assessments in the information environment and detection of foreign malign influence.