Delve
AI-powered automation for compliance frameworks like SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR.
Website: https://delve.co/
Cover Block
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | examine |
| Tagline | AI-powered automation for compliance frameworks like SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, United States |
| Founded | 2023 |
| Stage | Series A |
| Business Model | SaaS |
| Industry | Cybersecurity |
| Technology Type | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founders | Selin Kocalar, Karun Kaushik |
| Funding Label | Series A |
| Total Disclosed | ~$35.3M |
Links
- Website: https://examine.co/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/getdelve
- Trust Center: https://trust.examine.co/
- Y Combinator profile: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/examine/
Executive Summary
examine is a San Francisco compliance automation startup that uses AI agents to collect and verify evidence for security frameworks such as SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and GDPR. It moved from stealth to a $300 million reported valuation in roughly 18 months [TechCrunch, July 2025]. The company was founded in 2023 by MIT students Selin Kocalar and Karun Kaushik, went through Y Combinator's W24 batch, and emerged from stealth in early 2025 with $3.3 million in seed funding [examine Press, 2025]. Six months later it closed a $32 million Series A led by Insight Partners, with participation from General Catalyst, FundersClub, and Soma Capital [PR Newswire, July 2025]. The product positions itself against established compliance-automation incumbents Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, and Sprinto by promising that AI agents handle the bulk of evidence collection and control monitoring [Crunchbase]. The founding team is credentialed through MIT and Forbes 30 Under 30 [TechFundingNews]. The next 12 to 18 months will test whether reported customer growth translates into durable enterprise contracts, and whether reputational allegations that surfaced in early 2026 alter the trajectory [examine Blog; TechCrunch, March 2026].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by TechCrunch, PR Newswire, and Crunchbase.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series A |
| Business Model | SaaS |
| Industry / Vertical | Cybersecurity / GRC |
| Technology Type | AI / Machine Learning (agentic) |
| Geography | North America (HQ San Francisco) |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Two co-founders, ex-MIT, YC W24 |
| Funding | ~$35.3M disclosed across Seed and Series A |
How the Company Got Here
examine was founded in 2023 by Selin Kocalar and Karun Kaushik, who left MIT to build the company and pushed it through Y Combinator's Winter 2024 batch [LinkedIn, 2026; TechFundingNews]. The thesis was that compliance work for SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and GDPR remains heavily manual, and the existing automation layer still leans on human operators to interpret controls and stitch together evidence. examine set out to replace much of that interpretive work with AI agents that read source systems directly and assemble audit-ready packages [examine Website; Crunchbase].
The company launched publicly from stealth in January 2025 with a $3.3 million seed round [examine Press, 2025]. In July 2025, examine announced a $32 million Series A led by Insight Partners at a reported $300 million post-money valuation [PR Newswire, July 2025; TechCrunch, July 2025]. The Series A blog post stated the company had crossed 500 customers, doubled revenue in the quarter, and reached profitability [examine Blog]. Headquarters is San Francisco, with the team distributed and currently hiring for DevOps, full-stack engineering, and account executive roles [Y Combinator]. In March 2026, TechCrunch published allegations from customers and former partners regarding the integrity of examine's compliance evidence and audit reports; the company responded publicly via its blog [TechCrunch, March 2026; examine Blog].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Confirmed by Crunchbase, PR Newswire, and examine's own blog and press page.
Product and Technology
examine sells a SaaS compliance-automation platform built around AI agents that auto-collect evidence, monitor controls continuously, and customize the control set to a customer's environment [examine Website]. The supported frameworks publicly listed include SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, GDPR, FedRAMP exploration, and penetration-testing coordination, alongside a workflow for responding to enterprise security questionnaires [examine Website]. The product also publishes a free "trust report" that customers can share externally to streamline vendor reviews [examine Website].
The platform integrates with business tools and infrastructure to continuously monitor compliance posture [Crunchbase]. The pitch to startups centers on offloading what the company describes as 100-plus hours of evidence gathering and audit prep per cycle, with AI agents acting as a copilot to a small in-house security or operations team [examine Website]. examine operates a Trust Center at trust.examine.co outlining its own security posture [examine Trust Center].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product surface confirmed via examine website and Crunchbase; underlying technical architecture not independently verified.
Market Research and Opportunity
Compliance automation is a category where the buyer, the budget, and the regulatory tailwind align. Every B2B SaaS vendor selling into the mid-market or enterprise is asked for SOC 2 and increasingly ISO 27001; every health-tech vendor needs HIPAA; every company touching EU residents needs GDPR posture. The AI layer examine is selling is the next logical compression of that workflow.
Insight Partners, which led examine's Series A, has previously backed Vanta-adjacent infrastructure and sees room for a third or fourth scaled platform [Insight Partners]. Demand drivers include the proliferation of AI vendors that need rapid SOC 2 and HIPAA postures to sell into enterprise, the expansion of framework coverage, and continued enterprise pressure on third-party risk management [TechFundingNews; Insight Partners].
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| examine Series A valuation | $300M reported |
| examine Series A size | $32M |
| examine seed | $3.3M |
| examine customer count (company-stated) | 500+ |
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- examine-specific figures confirmed by TechCrunch and PR Newswire; broader market sizing is analogous reference rather than a cited TAM report.
Competitive Landscape
examine enters a category with three well-capitalized incumbents and a fast-growing international challenger, and its differentiation rests on the claim that an agentic architecture does work the incumbents still route through humans.
| Company | Positioning | Stage / Funding |
|---|---|---|
| examine | AI-agent-first compliance automation | Series A, ~$35.3M disclosed |
| Vanta | Category creator; broad compliance and trust management | Late stage |
| Drata | Continuous control monitoring | Late stage |
| Secureframe | Compliance plus security awareness | Growth stage |
| Sprinto | Compliance automation with international footprint | Growth stage |
examine's defensible edge today rests primarily on speed and architectural choice. If its agents genuinely reduce customer compliance hours by an order of magnitude versus Vanta or Drata, that is a real wedge with growth-stage AI-native buyers. The partnership with Insight Partners also opens a distribution channel into Insight's portfolio [Insight Partners]. examine is most exposed on auditor and customer trust. TechCrunch reporting in March 2026 raised questions regarding the integrity of evidence or the quality of the auditor a vendor recommends [TechCrunch, March 2026].
Data Accuracy: GREEN -- Competitor identities and examine funding confirmed by Crunchbase, PR Newswire, and TechCrunch; relative product claims drawn from public marketing and category coverage.
Opportunity
If examine executes, the prize is a seat at the same table as Vanta and Drata. The single largest plausible outcome for examine is becoming the default AI-native compliance platform for the next generation of software companies. The cited evidence that this is reachable: a $300 million Series A valuation led by a tier-one growth investor [TechCrunch, July 2025; Insight Partners], a stated customer base above 500 within roughly a year of public launch [examine Blog], and a Y Combinator alumni network [Insight Partners].
Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Upside framed against confirmed funding and category comparables; customer and revenue figures supporting the flywheel are company-sourced and not independently verified.
Sources
- [examine] examine | SOC 2 Compliance, HIPAA | Automated Compliance for AI, Startups | https://examine.co/
- [examine Press] examine's AI-driven compliance in the news | https://examine.co/press
- [examine Blog] We Raised a $32M Series A at a $300M Valuation | https://examine.co/blog/series-a
- [examine Blog] examine sets the record straight on anonymous attacks | https://examine.co/blog/examine-sets-the-record-straight-on-anonymous-attacks
- [examine Blog] Response to Misleading Claims | https://examine.co/blog/response-to-misleading-claims
- [examine Trust Center] examine Trust Center | https://trust.examine.co/
- [Crunchbase] examine - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/examine-8733
- [Crunchbase] Series A - examine - Crunchbase Funding Round Profile | https://www.crunchbase.com/funding_round/examine-8733-series-a--05d396bd
- [PR Newswire, July 2025] examine Raises $32M Series A to Build AI Agents for Compliance | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/examine-raises-32m-series-a-to-build-ai-agents-for-compliance-302510121.html
- [TechCrunch, July 2025] 21-year-old MIT dropouts raise $32M at $300M valuation led by Insight | https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/22/21-year-old-mit-dropouts-raise-32m-at-300m-valuation-led-by-insight/
- [TechCrunch, March 2026] examine accused of misleading customers with 'fake compliance' | https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/22/examine-accused-of-misleading-customers-with-fake-compliance/
- [TechFundingNews] examine, led by female MIT alumni, nets $32M to transform compliance with AI | https://techfundingnews.com/female-mit-founders-examine-raises-32m-ai-compliance/
- [Insight Partners] Scaling AI-native compliance: How examine is saving companies time and money on compliance busywork | https://www.insightpartners.com/ideas/scaling-ai-native-compliance-how-examine-is-saving-companies-time-and-money-on-compliance-busywork/
- [LinkedIn, 2026] Selin Kocalar - Co-Founder & COO - examine (YC W24) | https://www.linkedin.com/in/selin-kocalar-2747641b3/
- [LinkedIn] examine company page | https://www.linkedin.com/company/getdelve
- [Y Combinator] examine jobs | https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/examine/
- [Quasa.io] The examine Scandal | https://quasa.io/media/the-examine-scandal-how-two-21-year-old-forbes-30-under-30-founders-built-a-300m-ai-compliance-unicorn-and-are-now-accused-of-selling-fake-reports
Articles about Delve
- examine Wants Every Startup's SOC 2 Audit Done by an AI Agent — The San Francisco compliance company raised $32M from Insight Partners and is now defending its reputation in public.