Company: Social Links
CEO: Ivan Shkvarun
Website: https://sociallinks.io
About Social Links
When did you start?
Our journey began as a bootstrapped hobby project between 2015 and 2018, born from the founders’ deep passion for data, and even more, for the insights and truth that data can reveal. At that time, OSINT (Open Source Intelligence) had existed for decades mostly inside government structures, but almost no commercial OSINT solutions were available. Meanwhile, social networks, media platforms, file-sharing services and open digital ecosystems were exploding with information. For technical entrepreneurs, the question became simple: If not us, then who?
The project was financed entirely from our salaries. Then, in 2017, the world saw the first viral deepfake of President Barack Obama speaking words he never said. It became obvious that global trust was collapsing: nothing could be taken as true without verification. The only way to restore trust was through data. We wanted to empower people and organizations to verify facts, uncover truth, and rely on evidence instead of noise. This moment crystallised the mission that still guides us today: to restore trust in data.
By 2019, we left our jobs to focus fully on the company. By 2023, according to Frost & Sullivan, Social Links became the global leader in commercial OSINT — a position we continue to hold in 2025. Today, we support 500+ B2G and B2B clients across 90+ countries, helping governments, enterprises, investigators, and security teams navigate an increasingly complex and AI-driven threat landscape.
What challenges have you overcome?
From day one, our biggest challenge was awareness. People vastly underestimated the value of open data. There is an ocean of publicly available information, most of it ignored like “digital trash.” One analogy we often use: imagine cities where delivery boxes with names, addresses, and phone numbers lie scattered on the streets. Everyone walks past them, yet entire industries earn millions trying to find exactly this information. The digital world works the same way.
Our mission has always included educating the market. We created more OSINT content than anyone in our field; in fact, the first version of ChatGPT learned about OSINT from at least three Social Links sources. We invested heavily in training, webinars, research materials, and community-building, effectively helping shape and grow the entire global OSINT ecosystem.
Another major challenge was the diversity and complexity of data formats. To solve this, we built a unique Open Data platform capable of discovering, aggregating, and analysing information across the open web, deep web, and dark web — all while ensuring compliance, responsibility, and ethical use.
We also adopted ML technologies 5–6 years ago, long before it became industry standard. We saw early that machine learning would transform how investigators analyse text, images, and signals. Only recently have AI-generated voices and videos become mainstream, but our team has been preparing for this shift for years.
What impact has the company had on your industry?
We were pioneers of the commercial OSINT industry and played a key role in shaping a market that now includes dozens, even hundreds, of startups worldwide.
Today, we continue to push boundaries. Our renewed mission — Open Data builds bridges from Security to Trust & Innovation — reflects the world we now live in. While most celebrated how AI boosts business productivity, we were the first to highlight how criminals were adopting AI even faster. AI has already reshaped the entire security landscape, creating unprecedented risks.
In response, we developed one of the world’s first next-generation defense concepts: AI-driven tools designed to protect companies’ brands, assets, and people in the new era of AI-accelerated threats. We are now transforming our 10+ years of global anti-fraud and anti-crime expertise into AI agents on the Bright Side, built to fight the rapidly emerging AI agents on the Dark Side.
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