The round was led by Insight Partners and included participation from several Fortune 500 CISOs.
This marks a major leap for the young AI compliance startup, which raised just $3 million in seed funding in January.
Key Highlights
- Delve raises $32 million Series A, led by Insight Partners.
- Valuation jumps 10x, from $30M in January to $300M now.
- Founders Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar dropped out of MIT at age 20.
- Startup helps companies automate compliance with AI-powered agents.
- Over 500 customers, including fast-growing AI unicorns Lovable, Bland, and Wispr Flow.
Together From A Dorm Room To 300 Million
Founders Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar met during their freshman year at MIT. Both were passionate about AI compliance startup.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kaushik built a large-scale diagnostic system. By 2023, the duo was working on a AI compliance startup. However, dealing with sensitive health data introduced them to HIPAA compliance challenges very quickly.
They pivoted to building tools that assist startups in managing HIPAA compliance in a more streamlined and cost-effective manner.
This pivot landed them in Y Combinator, after which they went on to secure a $3 million seed round from General Catalyst, FundersClub, and Soma Capital.
What Does Delve Do?
Delve automates a company’s regulatory compliance procedures using AI.
Instead of paying hundreds of hours to submit tedious paperwork, conduct manual audits, gather evidence, and track compliance, Delve’s AI compliance startup all of this in the background.
These agents integrate with the company’s existing systems to automate collecting and organizing evidence, writing audit reports, maintaining compliance logs, and monitoring configurations of the systems.
Compliance frameworks are standardized. Businesses aren’t,” explains CEO Kaushik. That mismatch, he says, is why software that is “one size fits all” does not work.
Expanding Beyond HIPAA
After initially focusing on HIPAA, Delve expanded their services after existing customers started requesting assistance with supporting these frameworks:
- SOC 2
- PCI
- GDPR
- ISO
The team adapted. Now, Delve provides a solution that AI compliance startup across multiple frameworks and regulatory guidelines which the COO, Kocalar, dubbed the “alphabet soup” of regulations.
Speed of Adoption and Confidence from Investors
In the span of a few months, Delve has expanded its customer base from 100 to over 500. This is largely stemming from the high-growth AI compliance startup.
This momentum drove Insight Partners to take the lead on the Series A investment, with multiple term sheets having to be considered first.
“Insight has been amazing to work with. They’re the right long-term partner for us,” said Kocalar.
A Broader Vision for Back-Office Automation
Delve views its compliance features as a starting point and plans to expand further.
Kocalar mentioned how there are plans to expand into automating a billion hours of back-office work, which includes future expansion into:
- Cyber Security
- Risk Management
- Internal Governance
Insight Partners sees that potential too.
“Modernizing compliance modernizes the entire business. Delve is on the right path,” said Managing Director Praveen Akkiraju.
Delve’s Competition: Risk of Validation?
Along with Delve, new startups and tech giants like OpenAI are launching tools to automate business operations.
Even with the competition, Delve is confident in their offering.
“General-purpose agents can’t match the depth we offer for compliance. We have deep, domain-specific knowledge built into the platform,” mentioned Kocalar.
Moreover, compliance is a constantly evolving field. Changes and varying interpretations are the norm. Delve’s model has been built to be adaptive in real time.
Summary: The Outstanding Features of Delve
Delve stands out from other AI startups as it is building a platform designed to alleviate a business’s most tedious task — AI compliance startup.
How it matters:
- Tenfold valuation increase in a span of six months
- More than 500 active clients
- Founded by AI researchers from MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley
- Invested by Insight partners and leading figures in cybersecurity
- Seeking to automate hundreds of billions of operational hours