Zania

Audit use cases represent a high bar for AI agents - think professional skepticism and practice standards. At Zania our agents are trained on private models to be highly accurate in this work. Our own Aidan Collins will present on this with Joe Oringel at WCARS - don't miss it! #WCARS #Rutgers #AIinAudit #GRC

Hear the Zania story!

Episode 1 of the Build and Beyond Podcast launches with Shruti Gupta- who recently closed an $18M Series A with New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Menlo Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, and Anthropic. She's the Founder of Zania (AI Agents for GRC), and the former CISO at Airbnb, Instacart, Brex, and Microsoft. Last week’s 90s preview barely scratched the surface. In this full episode, Shruti uncovers how her time at Georgia Institute of Technology shaped her, why going after 'boring' problems creates asymmetric advantages, how Zania earned revenue from Day 0, and how building with customers changed everything for them. Full episode in the comments ⬇

How do you manage risk at scale, without slowing innovation? AI agents are finally making this possible. Plaid has long been known for pushing the boundaries of fintech while upholding the highest standards of trust and compliance. In our latest conversation, Justin Garlick, from Plaid's Risk & Compliance team, sat down with our founder Shruti Gupta to share how his team is transforming their GRC program with Zania's AI. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/eyNwHfae Follow us for more!

Kicking off the Build and Beyond Podcast with Shruti Gupta- who just raised an $18M Series A, backed by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Menlo Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, and Anthropic. She's the Founder of Zania (AI Agents for GRC), and the former CISO at Airbnb, Instacart, and Brex. We discussed why she decided to build in the GRC space, the implications of AI Agents on security, funding trends and acquisitions in cybersecurity, how her time at Georgia Institute of Technology shaped her, and a lot more. 90s preview below. Full episode in the comments ⬇

Beyond excited for NEA to lead Zania’s Series A. Shruti Gupta is an exceptional founder with a comprehensive vision around building agents for enterprise cybersecurity governance risk & compliance (GRC) having led teams across Microsoft, Instacart, Brex, and Airbnb. Cybersecurity GRC isn’t just a set of check boxes in the enterprise context, where it is core & strategic with meaningful business impact - and needs to be handled with flexibility. Today workflows remain manual, painful, and impossible to scale. Zania's sub-agents are able to nimbly handle heterogeneity. The proof is in the pudding with their incredible customers landed already across the audit & advisory professional services world and tech-native enterprises. They are hiring to support their rapid growth and rapid execution by Shruti Gupta, Aidan Collins, Rangoli Bhattacharjee, and whole Zania team 🚀🚀🚀

Week 40:  Having looked at MetalBear, Earthmover PBC, Mycroft and Synthesized last week, this week I’ll be looking at another 5 super exciting start-ups that have raised impressive rounds. I don't know if the companies below are hiring but I always look at 3 key parameters- PRODUCT - LEADERSHIP - GROWTH - here we go!! revel8 - Seed $6.7 Million led by Peak  Revel8 protects organizations from generative AI-driven social engineering attacks. Their platform delivers real-time, personalized simulations across email, SMS, voice, and video deepfakes, tailored to each employee’s risk profile using open-source intelligence. By replicating modern attacker tactics, Revel8 transforms employees into an active line of defense against sophisticated cyber threats. Leadership - Tom Müller, Julius M., Robert Seilbeck https://www.revel8.ai/ Composite - Seed $5.6 Million led by NFDG Ventures Composite is a browser-native AI assistant designed to automate repetitive tasks, like filling forms, running reports, and syncing data, directly within your existing browser. Composite operates locally on your device, ensuring that your data never leaves your browser. This approach not only enhances privacy and security but also allows for seamless integration with your current workflows without the need for external APIs or complex setups. Leadership - Charlie Deane, Yang Fan Yun https://www.composite.com/ Dash0 - Series A $35 Million led by Accel and Cherry Ventures  Dash0 is an OpenTelemetry-native observability platform built for developers, combining logs, metrics, and traces into real-time, resource-centric visibility across applications and infrastructure. With seamless integrations like PromQL, Perses, and Kubernetes, plus transparent usage-based pricing, it helps teams quickly detect issues, optimize performance, and avoid vendor lock-in. Leadership - Mirko Novakovic, Ben Blackmore, Marcel Sim, Peter Juentgen https://www.dash0.com/ Zania - Series A $18 Million led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) Zania is an AI-driven platform that automates governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) processes. It continuously monitors systems, orchestrates workflows, and delivers explainable results, helping enterprises reduce manual effort and improve accuracy in compliance management. Leadership - Shruti Gupta, Aidan Collins https://zania.ai/ Mondoo - Series A $17.5 Million led by Atomico and HV Capital  Mondoo is a unified security platform that identifies, prioritizes, and remediates risks across your entire IT infrastructure from a single interface. By combining AI-driven detection, continuous monitoring, and policy-as-code automation, it helps organizations quickly address their most critical vulnerabilities, improving security posture while reducing manual effort. Leadership - Soo Choi-Andrews, Dominik Richter, Christoph Hartmann, Cole Amodeo, Matthias Canisius https://mondoo.com/ #cybersecurity #observability #devops #vc #funding #growth #leadership #gtmhiring

We want to express our gratitude to Yoichiro Taku, Avi Emanuel, Nate Lees, Hayden Stephens, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati team for their partnership throughout our journey. Thank you all for your support and collaboration! https://lnkd.in/gjDdHNEi #Partnership #Gratitude

Zania: The end of manual compliance. Zania recently announced its $18M Series A round to reinvent enterprise risk & compliance with AI Agents. NEA's Mustafa Neemuchwala, Hilarie Koplow-McAdams, and Ayush Goradia detail why we believe Shruti Gupta and the Zania team are defining GRC for the AI era by: 🤖 Automating security and compliance tasks using AI agents, replacing manual workflows. 🚚 Delivering full end-to-end GRC processes—assessment, monitoring, and remediation—in minutes. 🤩 Attracting major companies to use Zania to streamline compliance, especially amid rising cyber threats and evolving regulations. Read it here: https://lnkd.in/gs2xQ2SS