Founders Everywhere: Richa Kaul
Richa Kaul is the founder and CEO of Complyance, the leading AI-Native GRC platform for enterprises.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
Enterprise Security and GRC teams have no time for the “important” because they’re constantly battling the “urgent.” Audits, evidence requests, and policy updates (to name a few) leave little room for the proactive work that actually reduces risk. Complyance has cracked the code on customizable AI agents that reliably shift manual work from Security and GRC teams to AI. They lead the market with over 20 purpose-built, domain-trained AI agents that support everything the Enterprise GRC teams do: controls monitoring, risk treatment, third party diligence, policy management, and more. It’s compliance with a (wh)y!
Founder and CEO Richa Kaul is driven by a deep interest in data privacy, security, and the evolving role of technology in protecting businesses and consumers. Before founding Complyance, she held leadership roles at ContractPodAi, worked as a consultant at McKinsey & Company and the World Bank, and advised organizations across the public and private sectors. With Complyance, Richa is passionate about building solutions that help organizations go from reactive to proactive.
What inspired you to build Complyance?
This is a funny question because it all comes back to the fact that I am a huge data privacy nut in my personal life! I literally go around at parties and help people adjust the security configurations on their phones to better protect their personal data. But I started to realize some years ago that, no matter how many personal privacy configurations I put on my phone, at the end of the day I have to trust companies with my data. We all do. And yet we see the news of companies going through data breaches every day it seems. It all made me realize that the best way to actually secure our data as individuals is to help secure the companies that hold the world’s data. By doing that, we are supporting all of the millions and millions of consumers whose data they hold. Complyance is about securing Enterprises with automated security compliance monitoring and AI agents that identify and reduce risk.
What’s Complyance’s company North Star?
We protect consumer data by helping to secure the companies who hold the world’s data.
Tell us about a recent milestone that Complyance crushed.
We recently raised a preemptive Series A from Google Ventures (GV)! GV wanted to make an investment in the security compliance space, so they reviewed all of the players in our space. They approached us because our AI was far ahead, and our clients actually relied on it every day. It’s an extremely exciting milestone in our journey.
How does Complyance inspire “customer love”?
By shifting core work from the team to our AI agents, our clients suddenly have time back. They use this time to achieve their more strategic goals, which drive real business value, create a better security culture, and deliver on their executive team’s goals. Our clients don’t just ‘love’ our product, they ’need’ our product. Customers including Dropbox, CVS Health, and Major League Soccer love that our product works reliably for them every day.
How has your background influenced you as a founder?
I started my career in the public sector and thought I would work in the public sector forever. I would not be satisfied as a founder if I didn’t feel like I was contributing to a greater mission, something for the greater good. In that way, I think my start in the public sector will always influence the way that I define success for myself, both as a founder, and as a citizen of our world.
Favorite quote:
“The best day to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best day is today.” Get going!
Fun fact:
I used to hurdle - that was my track & field event - and I think about that a lot at work. In hurdling, the first hurdle is everything: you time your steps, find your rhythm, and set yourself up for the rest of the race. That’s how I approach important meetings and pitches: I prepare hardest for the first few minutes, because nailing the first hurdle makes everything else easier after that.
From the archives: Listen to Mishal “Mish” Thadani with Vir Kashyap, on the Venture Everywhere podcast: Off the Grid. Now on Apple & Spotify. Check out all our past episodes here!
