Breakthrough Victoria, the state government’s $2 billion investment fund, has backed edtech startup Cadmus, which helps universities spot generative AI plagiarism, raising $600,000 as part of an undisclosed global expansion round.

Cadmus was born in 2015 from a research project at the University of Melbourne. The software platform has advanced student analytics that detect the authenticity of a student’s work, including the use of ChatGPT and other AI platforms.

Cadmus founder and CEO Herk Kailis said that rather than trying to catch academic misconduct at the time of submission, Cadmus monitors the process around the construction of student assessments, including metrics such as how many hours a student spent on their assessment and the sources of a third party pasted work.

The Cadmus platform

“Given the continued impact of digital innovation on traditional teaching and learning practices in higher education, our first-in-market assessment for learning platform plays a critical role in supporting institutions in addressing some of their biggest challenges in the field of student experience, student success, inclusive education. teaching and learning practices and academic integrity,” he said.

“We are experiencing rapid growth domestically and in new international markets and this timely investment from Breakthrough Victoria will enable Cadmus to continue its rapid expansion.”

As well as providing a solution for plagiarism detection, the Cadmus platform also enables universities to design high-quality, authentic assessments for any academic discipline and has already been adopted by more than half of Australia’s universities and leading universities in the UK.

Kailis said universities using Cadmus have reported a 76% decrease in academic misconduct, a 91% positive student experience and an 8.5% increase in academic performance and graduation rates.

Breakthrough Victoria CEO Grant Dooley said AI language programs like ChatGPT are creating real challenges for universities.

“Cadmus is a breakthrough innovation that can solve this problem. With the right support and investment, we believe Cadmus has the potential to help universities across Victoria and globally maintain academic integrity and improve student outcomes and their learning experience,” he said.