Delve, a compatibility startup backed by Y Combinator accused of preparing certificates for its customers disabled “order a demo” function on the website.
The controversy, detailed last week in a Substack post by an anonymous whistleblower known as “DeepDelver,” apparently prompted Insight Partners to remove an article explaining its subject. 32 million dollars investment in startup. DeepDelver, which claims to be a former customer, has alleged that Delve, which was valued at $300 million in a Series A funding round last year, fabricated compliance data for its customers.
Authored by Teddie Wardi and Praveen Akkiraju, Managing Directors of Insight Partners, the article titled “Scaling EU local compliance: How Delve saves companies time and money in their compliance efforts” can be viewed. here Via the Wayback Machine, an internet archive that stores snapshots of web pages.
Delve co-founders Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar, as well as Insight Partners, did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.
On its website, Delve claims it has helped clients such as Microsoft, Chase, PayPal, American Express and AI search company Perplexity reduce “hundreds of hours” of compliance work. However, it is unclear how many of these companies are still active users of the platform.
Founded in 2023, Delve says it uses artificial intelligence to automate the process of obtaining security and regulatory certifications, including SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR, which are standards governing data security, health data privacy and European data protection, respectively.
In a Substack post, DeepDelver claimed that Delve “fabricated evidence of board meetings, tests and processes that never happened,” then forced customers to “choose between accepting fake evidence or doing mostly manual work with little real automation or artificial intelligence.”
Techcrunch event
San Francisco, CA
|
October 13-15, 2026
The post further claims that the Delve platform rubber-stamps its reports instead of going through a second layer of independent auditing.
Delve responded to the accusations by saying that it does not issue compliance reports at all and is instead an “automation platform” that receives compliance information and then provides auditors with access to that information.
Delve also said its clients “can choose to work with an auditor of their choice or work with one of Delve’s network of independent, accredited third-party audit firms.” According to the startup, these auditors are “established firms that are widely used in the industry, including other compliance platforms.”
In response to accusations that it was providing “false evidence” to customers, Delve countered that it simply offered “templates to help teams document their processes according to compliance requirements, like other compliance platforms.”
While the company has denied DeepDelver’s claims, the disabling of the “order a demo” feature and the removal of Insight Partners’ investment thesis article suggest the startup is in damage control and investors may be walking away from the company.
