Laika Raises $35M Series B assist companies with security audits

Laika, a unified compliance-as-a-service platform, has closed $35 million in Series B funding led by JP Morgan Growth Equity Partners with participation from PayPal Ventures and all existing investors including Bain Capital Ventures, Canapi, Dashfund, Nyca and ThirdPrime. Laika will use the funding to develop additional automation, integrate audit experiences into the platform, build out its team, and extend the company's growth and momentum in the market.

Laika helps companies establish robust compliance practices to meet the strict requirements from regulators and enterprise customers. Companies are increasingly reliant upon independent audits and assessments of software providers' compliance controls. Traditionally, this has been a cumbersome, manual and lengthy process which results in missed deals and lost revenue that significantly impacts the bottom line, particularly for small to mid-sized companies. Laika's platform combines automated infosec workflows, audits, monitoring and vendor due diligence in a single platform. All Laika customers are supported by subject matter experts at every step of the compliance process. This includes dedicated compliance architects to help companies navigate compliance processes and obtain security certifications.

"Meeting compliance requirements for regulators or enterprise customers can be a huge obstacle for startups with innovative products but small teams," said Eva Pittas (pictured), founder and COO, Laika. "By transforming compliance into a frictionless, subscription-based digital experience, Laika transforms compliance from a sales obstacle into a growth lever for front-line sales and business development teams."

Christopher Dawe, managing partner and head of Growth Equity Partners added: "Laika's unified compliance-as-a-service platform is well positioned to take advantage of demand for compliance services and help bring transparency and automation to its customers. As a firm that works with thousands of vendors, JP Morgan has a deep appreciation for the complexities of the compliance function and we saw a huge opportunity for Laika to address the pain points in the industry. We are pleased to have led their Series B funding round and will bring the resources of the firm to help the business scale."

The company has achieved 4.5x ARR growth YOY, including 3.9x YOY customer growth; over 50 percent of customers have upgraded to the company's Laika+ offering. Laika currently has 100 employees and expects to grow headcount by approximately 120 in the next 12 months, with a focus on building out its Sales and CX teams to support customers on the West Coast and Asia-Pacific region.

"Compliance is very complex with many nuances across geographic and industry lines. This amounts to an untenable operating environment for virtually all software companies who lack the domain expertise to understand all compliance requirements let alone the ability to satisfy them all. The opportunity to help customers overcome these challenges is really exciting to us," said Austin Ogilvie, founder of Laika.

In addition to the new funding, Christopher ("Topher") Dawe, managing partner and head of Growth Equity Partners at JP Morgan Private Capital, will be joining Laika's board of directors. Dawe joined JP Morgan Private Capital in June 2021 to lead the newly-established Growth Equity Partners. Patrick McGoldrick, partner at JP Morgan Growth Equity Partners, will serve as a board observer to the Laika board of directors.

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