Entrepreneurs Al Yang and Adar Arnon met at Harvard Business School and quickly realized that they had an interest in common: cybersecurity. They witnessed an evolving business climate that brought along with it an unprecedented need for improved security processes. Security’s importance has increased exponentially and is non-negotiable for technology buyers. Yang and Arnon decided to turn this interest into something more, so they started SafeBase, which was accepted into Y Combinator’s accelerator program during the pandemic.
SafeBase helps customers fill out security questionnaires, which are reviews organizations normally kick off before buying a new piece of software. It’s a governance and compliance thing. Security questionnaires can be painstaking, taking teams weeks to months to complete for more complex pieces of software. But Arnon makes the case that SafeBase can save time through automation — and AI. SafeBase employs AI models ‘specifically trained on security documentation use cases’ to read, interpret security information and questions and then automatically respond to security questionnaires.
SafeBase isn’t the only vendor out there offering tools to automate security questionnaires and reviews. Rivals include Conveyor, which recently raised $12.5 million; Kintent; and Quilt, which claims that it can also automate due diligence reviews in addition to security reviews.
Arnon didn’t seem too worried. Perhaps that’s because of SafeBase’s 700-company-strong customer roster, which includes Palantir, LinkedIn, Asana, and Instacart. SafeBase saw massive growth in the past couple of years. Customers love the product and adoption continues to accelerate. The company benefits from increased visibility across its vendor network as more and more high-volume customers launch trust centers that replace the need for tens of thousands of manual security reviews.
