A new anonymous Substack alleges AI compliance startup Delve “faked” compliance for startups by generating pre-populated audit reports and fabricating evidence
How Delve managed to falsely convince hundreds of customers they were compliant and then lied about it when exposed and called out
DeepDelver
Related Coverage
- Sobering read. Delve, an “AI-powered” compliance platform, allegedly fabricated evidence and used partnered audit firms to rubber-stamp SOC 2 reports. … Jan Langrehr
- Delve - Fake Compliance as a Service Hacker News
- Is it real? Perhaps I was early (to be honest, not even that early) but I wasn't wrong. — FYI - I am not the author of this nor was I involved in any of this research. … Mike Kim
- Delve - Fake Compliance as a Service Hacker News
- Response to Misleading Claims Delve
Discussion
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@heretorule77
Silver
on x
@ohryansbelt saw this interview of founder of delve yesterday on instagram [video]
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@megannyvold
Megan Nyvold
on x
Overt self promotion and excessive pr for startups is such a turn off oh my god Founders that love doing this are nearly always compensating. Will they ever learn
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@kobyjconrad
Koby Conrad
on x
Just a PSA we use Delve. Delve does EXACTLY what EVERY other company in this space does, they provide a checklist and help you automate your compliance. WE are still responsible for our security. Not Delve. This industry is shady AF and this anon is 100% a competitor 🫡
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@ohryansbelt
Ryan
on x
Delve, a YC-backed compliance startup that raised $32 million, has been accused of systematically faking SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance reports for hundreds of clients. According to a detailed Substack investigation by DeepDelver, a leaked Google spreadsheet [image]
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@jessicatshen
Jessica Shen
on x
This exposé isn't getting nearly enough attention. @getdelve, a YC W24 compliance automation startup that raised $32M from Insight Partners, allegedly convinced hundreds of companies they were SOC 2 compliant, when they weren't. The scheme involved working with Indian audit [imag…
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@mil0theminer
Milo Smith
on x
3rd all nighter of what? Compliance??? I don't want my security company shipping 3am code
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@tenobrus
@tenobrus
on x
i just scrolled thru the whole delve linkedin and literally the single eng with the most fulltime swe experience has 3.5 yoe
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@bryanonel86
Bryan Onel
on x
Yeah this doesn't surprise me in any way, given the history I have with the founder of Delve. What a bombshell of an article though. There is just so much to unpack.
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@anammostarac
Ana Mostarac
on x
> Startup accused of fraud > Check bios of both founders > Forbes 30 under 30 [image]
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@attributeshift
@attributeshift
on x
@ohryansbelt are these the same guys that bragged about their engineer working for 3 days straight
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@mil0theminer
Milo Smith
on x
Who would have guessed that Delve is a fraud
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@mil0theminer
Milo Smith
on x
Holy shit they're just going straight to jail [image]
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@quinnypig
Corey Quinn
on x
Affected client: @cluely Yes, that Cluely, the company that sells AI overlays to help people cheat interviews. A company whose entire value prop is undetectable deception was getting its compliance from a company whose entire value prop is undetectable deception. Synergy!
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@barrald
Barry McCardel
on x
there's something truly sublime about cluely being scammed on their SOC 2
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@bfaviero
Bruno Faviero
on x
Glad we used @TrustVanta [image]
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@denehyxxl
Ryan Denehy
on x
@eringriffith Early stage companies who slap their names on race cars don't often end well [image]
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@johnloeber
John Loeber
on x
6 months ago, I found out that Delve only had 5 engineers, and all of them pretty junior (no offense intended). I checked LinkedIn again, they're up to 10 now, it seems Drata? Vanta? Hundreds. Sometimes someone figures out a magic trick in engineering... but it's unlikely.
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@awwstn
Austin Petersmith
on x
not gonna lie, as we've been going through a gruelling SOC2 process with Vanta i have felt a lot of FOMO reading about Delve customers getting it done in 3 weeks if all this is true then NOMOFOMO
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@tenobrus
@tenobrus
on x
heads up that if you use @getdelve for compliance they're blatant fraudsters and have opened you up to massive legal liability. @karunkaushik_ and @kocalars i hope you both go to jail :)
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@tekbog
@tekbog
on x
turns out sometimes you can't just “do things”
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@ahmetb
@ahmetb
on x
you should beware of using @Lovable @cluely @wisprflow for anything confidential/PII because they most likely obtained compliance through Delve and got frauded themselves.
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@zetalyrae
Fernando
on x
“we” is a “Sobriety Platform for the future of Superintelligence” funded by YC [image]
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@vcbrags
@vcbrags
on x
@ohryansbelt @asemota 30u30 never misses [image]
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@isareksopuro
Isabelle
on x
state of silicon valley: > Delve (YC W24) >"AI Native" >literally no AI >forbes 30u30 founders >charges $6k for a chatgpt'd legal contract >uses Indian contractors to fake data (impersonating as US-based CPAs) > leaked sensitive client data (Lovable, Cluely) & blamed it on [image…
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@jackbr513
Jack Brown
on x
@eringriffith Unfortunate timing for their new bus ad 😬 [image]
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@eringriffith
Erin Griffith
on x
A detailed and brutal look at the tactics of buzzy AI compliance startup Delve “Delve built a machine designed to make clients complicit without their knowledge, to manufacture plausible deniability while producing exactly the opposite.” https://substack.com/...
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@scottastevenson
Scott Stevenson
on x
Is it time to talk about how all the major SOC2 providers are borderline fraudulent or is there too much market cap at stake?
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@kscottz
Kat Scott
on x
Billboards for this company are all over SF. I walked by their headquarters the other day and just laughed, because “delve” is onenof those canary words that signals AI slop. I'm sure this isn't the first or last fraud to come out of YC's AI era. [image]
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@pk_iv
Paul Klein IV
on x
If this is legit - it means that every SOC-2 report from their customers will need to be redone (which will take months). Very thankful to be a Vanta customer right now.
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@jessfraz
Jessie Frazelle
on x
VCs about to delete a lot of tweets
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@javipark_
Javi Park
on x
if this is true, congrats @Forbes you've done it again 👏👏👏👏 [image]
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@shobhitic
@shobhitic
on x
saw this interview of founder of delve yesterday on instagram [video]
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@bonegpt
Bone
on x
another YC fraud mill
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r/soc2
r
on reddit
The madness continues
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@jadecole2112
Jade Cole
on x
I am concerned a lot of these rapid “AI first” startups are essentially fraudulent, using AI as primarily a marketing and promotion tool to get fundraising and free social media attention, while using humans in the background to do what they say their AI tools are doing. [image]
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@ivanburazin
Ivan Burazin
on x
It took our compliance officer close to a year to get SOC 2 done. In the meantime, I saw even 3 month old startups getting it with ease. After a point I got frustrated: “Why the hell are we using @DrataHQ? Let's try these guys and get it done!” He kept saying “It's just not [imag…
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@brettfromdj
Brett
on x
Imagine raising $32,000,000 from Insight + YC, making Forbes 30u30, then allegedly using AI to mass-produce fake SOC 2 / HIPAA certs for your clients... and spending the budget on wrapping a race car instead of, y'know, doing actual compliance.
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@decadimitry
Dimitry Yakoushkin
on x
How could this level of blatant fraud make it past a VC firm led by this executive team? [image]
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@vasuman
Vas
on x
P-1: fraud
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@0xluffy
Luffy
on x
imagine pulling 3rd all nighter faking compliance
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@busdownbonnor
Connor
on x
I worked for a YC startup that is SOC2 and ISO compliant with Delve. It's definitely bullshit. With basically no security measures in place at the time, we managed to speed-run compliance in weeks by uploading complete garbage into their portal. The past few months I've been
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@feifanz
Feifan Zhou
on x
We talked to Delve last summer. Heard a few concerning stories behind the scenes; decided to go with someone else for our SOC II. Glad we did. We take security seriously at Tanagram. [image]
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@boringbiz_
@boringbiz_
on x
Forbes 30u30 has a better hit rate on identifying fraudulent companies than Chamath has on identifying good SPAC targets Let that sink in
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@zackkorman
Zack Korman
on x
The Delve stuff is bad, but all of these compliance platforms (Vanta, Drata, etc) have their “trusted auditors” they recommend. That is the core issue that corrupts this space. [image]
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@regimecpa
@regimecpa
on bluesky
If you're a tech or business journalist who wants to talk about the corruption of the SOC 2 compliance space after reading the below, let me know, happy to provide context from an auditor before you reach out to the author.
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@tekbog
@tekbog
on x
>cluely “cheat on everything” gets praised >companies start to cheat on everything >VCs retardmaxxing [image]
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@bengold
Ben Gold
on x
This is fucking insane and further proof that YC has totally lost the plot for not doing due diligence.
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@anothercohen
Alex Cohen
on x
Incredible. At this point we need to put the Forbes editors in charge of the FBI [image]
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@stkenned
Scott Kennedy
on x
Just completed our annual SOC2 audit using Vanta. They audited every MDM config, device destruction certificate, patched vulnerability. Honestly, it was painful. But we passed each test and I know we do right by our users. Delve is a known “shortcut”. Never considered it.
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@peer_rich
@peer_rich
on x
delve couldve done the funniest ad ever [image]
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@regimecpa
@regimecpa
on bluesky
If you want some light reading. Also, how is a company named bland ai real?
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@alisonbuki
@alisonbuki
on bluesky
another day another startup fraud — substack.com/home/post/p-...
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@moll.dev
Tom
on bluesky
Absolutely wild. Cluely and others using a scam compliance-as-a-service company that just rubberstamps everything using a sketch US firm and numerous other sketchy Indian firms to claim SOX2, HIPPA, GDPR, etc compliance. — substack.com/home/post/p-...
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@bryanonel86
Bryan Onel
on x
Wow. Delve just took down all of their customer logos as well as the entire testimonials tab and page. Never seen a company die in realtime before. [image]