Billions of posts are made across social media every day worldwide, from cat videos to threats. That’s a lot of data shared, organic or not.

Minneapolis-based startup Gudea (pronounced goo-DAY-ah) monitors it all with its artificial intelligence platform. Its technology tracks coordinated online campaigns, misinformation, and fake narratives spreading across digital platforms to alert client companies to discussion about them online.

Gudea chief executive officer Keith Presley says his startup is like “the storm tracker for the internet. So as a meteorologist uses patterns to predict the weather, we use online patterns to predict trends. Essentially, we can tell you if something is authentic versus inauthentic, automated versus [a human] influencer.”

What happens when a threat is detected? Gudea gives companies the information that there’s negative material about them online, who is behind it, and whether it’s likely to go viral.

Gudea’s work matters because it can provide a business time to react and prepare, says Jonathan Sperber, chief operating officer.

In late 2025, Gudea caught disinformation online claiming Taylor Swift was using Nazi symbolism on her album The Life of a Showgirl. The discovery helped Gudea earn national attention, and offered a case study of how a falsehood could convert into authentic discourse and reshape public attitudes even though most people didn’t believe the original claim.

The same can happen with political and cultural issues, Presley adds.

Gudea relocated from Maryland to Minneapolis in 2025. Sperber says the startup moved in part because the Washington, D.C., area is “horrible for business,” and Minnesota has a lot of Fortune 500 companies here as well as “our ICP (ideal customer profile).”

Earlier this summer, Gudea closed a seed funding round with nearly $7 million. It has 23 full-time employees.

HQ: Minneapolis
Founded: 2023
Founder: Keith Presley, Jonathan Sperber, and James Thomin