Compliance raises $20 million to help companies manage risk and compliance

Richa Kaul says she is a bit crazy about data privacy. At parties, for example, she’s the one helping people with their phone’s privacy settings. “I came to a point where I realized that the best way to truly protect consumer data is to help secure the businesses that hold the world’s data.”

So he started a company called Compliance to do just that. On Wednesday, the company announced a $20 million Series A round led by GV. Compliance is an application that companies integrate into their existing technology stack. It uses AI agents to help them manage governance, risk and, well, data compliance.

“Artificial intelligence essentially automates a number of manual tasks,” Kaul said. “It uses artificial intelligence to make customized checks on incoming data according to their own specific criteria and risk thresholds.” The AI ​​then highlights any risks that need to be reviewed.

These risk reviews can take weeks or months when done manually. It’s a standard audit-based process that happens maybe once a year or once a quarter, where teams will audit their organization. Tools like Compliance hope to make this process more efficient by using technology to continuously check in seconds, so companies never have to wonder if they’re data compliant. It also has an agent who assesses the risk of any third party suppliers.

“We’re trying to redefine what GRC teams do for business right now,” he said, adding that he usually chases mundane tasks. GRC is about governance, risk and compliance.

Others on the market include Archer, ServiceNow GRC, and OneTrust. He said his company differs from the incumbents because it’s native to AI, rather than layering AI features on top.

Kaul declined to say how many clients the company has, but noted that it works with some Fortune 500 companies. Compliance has raised $28 million in funding to date. Although the company came out of stealth in 2023, its first product didn’t hit the market until late 2024. Kaul called the fundraising “kind of a fairy tale” because GV actually approached it.

“They were looking for an enterprise-grade AI product in the space that won over enterprise customers, and we did that,” Kaul said. Others in this latest Series A round include Speedinvest, Everywhere Ventures and angel investors from Anthropic and Mastercard.

The fresh capital will be used to help expand the market, Kaul said. It wants to release 30 more custom-built agents on top of the 16 the product already has. The goal is to help make the life and work of GRCs much easier. After all, they didn’t sign up to chase worldly jobs.

“They signed up to help protect their businesses and help protect their business customers,” he said. “By redefining some of those workflows and redefining how work is done, we’re able to unblock them to help them focus on those strategic priorities.”