🚀 Vanta: Automate compliance, Simplify security
Hear the founder's story!
This week's startup, Vanta, simplifies the once-painful compliance process for businesses - and we have a special feature focusing on how the company started with their CEO and founder Christina Cacioppo! Then, check out their product demo!
⚾ The Elevator Pitch:
Today, customers are especially conscious of their most valuable asset: data. In order to show that customer data is protected properly, most companies need to undergo long and expensive processes to reach compliance across standards such SOC 2, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and more. These standards each have their own complexities, and in the past, each company had to figure out the process on their own.
That is, until Vanta. Vanta makes it super simple for businesses to tackle compliance through one easy-to-use platform. Their suite of integrations, analytics, automations, and customer support offers a fast, seamless compliance acquisition experience.
👇 The Drop Down
💻 Site: https://www.vanta.com/
🌱 Founded: 2017
🦄 Stage: Series B
📈 Tech trend: Enterprise, Security
🦶Traction: Raised $150mil Series B, works with 3,000+ customers like Quora, Autodesk, Modern Treasury, won G2 Crowd awards
🧑 Team: Ex-product manager @ Dropbox, Stanford Grad
📖 Founder takeaways
Vanta CEO and founder Christina Cacioppo led the company to $10MM in ARR before they raised their series A. How did she do it? Here are her stories and takeaways in her own words:
📦 I needed the product myself
In 2016 I was a product manager at Dropbox working on Dropbox Paper. We had been advised to act like a startup. But in our efforts to move fast we realized we hadn't built Paper to meet Dropbox’s rigorous security requirements. In particular, we learned we had to obtain a SOC 2 report. And that process could take over a year, consuming most of the team's engineering resources. So in 2017 I cofounded Vanta with a core concept: startups that prioritize security and compliance early will experience tons of benefit downstream.
📈 I didn’t want financing to dictate Vanta’s business
I didn't want to walk into VC's offices and try to pitch Vanta without the full confidence that the idea deserved. Instead, I devoted more time to talking to customers, selling Vanta myself, and learning which pitches resonated and which did not. The focus was on building an important product in a new category that would really unlock opportunity and growth for startups.
✅ We validated our idea before we wrote any code
I had previously written a lot of code for products that I thought would be great and no one ended up wanting. With Vanta, two insights came out of speaking with founders and SaaS leaders. First, security reviews could mean deals getting stuck at the one yard line. Second, people genuinely wanted to create secure products. Vanta helped founders do both - and grow their business as a result.
🤝 Get Involved with Vanta
Check out the Vanta website
Sign up for a Vanta demo and learn more