Laika+, A J.P. Morgan-Backed Security Product, Hits The Market

Today, organizations struggle to keep up with changing infosec and privacy regulatory requirements from governments around the world. Some companies are unable to distribute and communicate information about compliance posture to their customers.

And that’s where Laika comes in. The JP Morgan-backed Laika is the industry’s first complete compliance platform that helps organizations and growing companies manage compliance, obtain security certifications so they can focus on their core business.

Today, Laika, announced the launch of its new product, Laika+, a technology-driven audit solution that makes it easier for companies to sail through IT audits in record time and receive the highest quality audits in the industry. The Laika+ product was first launched in closed beta in March 2021. Since then, more than 80% of new and existing customers have signed up for Laika+, underscoring the need for a streamlined, high-quality audit solution.

Laika+ is the first audit solution that is truly integrated with a compliance platform, bringing a new level of frictionless convenience and innovation in supporting companies with the SOC 2 compliance process. According to the company, the new Laika+ offering will deliver comprehensive audit reports in half the time; the first audit solution is integrated with a compliance platform to help companies easily navigate SOC 2 compliance.

Laika was founded in 2019 by Austin Ogilvie and Sam Li, both two-time founders and Y Combinator alumni, and industry veteran Eva Pittas, who oversaw global risk and compliance functions at Citigroup for 20 years.

Laika is a complete compliance platform that automates workflows for integrated audits, infosec monitoring, and vendor due diligence in a single, collaborative space. Obtain certifications and pass security assessments faster, gain a competitive edge with the help of Laika compliance experts, and rapidly scale compliance without constraints.

Companies face a stringent landscape of infosec and privacy regulations, which makes IT audits more prevalent as a requirement for upmarket business deals. While necessary, contractors and vendors looking to demonstrate compliance are facing time-consuming, repetitive, and costly procedures.

“Enterprise awareness of various risks assumed through third-party vendor relationships has spiked in recent years. As a consequence, there’s been a surge in demand for software and services to help businesses establish trust with their vendors,” said Austin Ogilvie, co-founder and co-CEO of Laika. “The audit process can be daunting to early-stage companies and become a major obstacle to closing million-dollar deals. Our new Laika+ offering delivers programmatically verifiable compliance with reproducible results for businesses of all sizes and industries while relieving the pain points of the audit process.”

Laika+ is powered by new technology specifically for independent auditors to perform IT audit fieldwork faster and more effectively than ever before. Until now, IT audits required data exports and manual, offline fieldwork, and testing. Laika+ allows companies to supply auditors with necessary data via the platform, while auditors have access to their own suite of tools from Laika.

Laika+ removes 80% of manual evidence requests and collection, reducing the audit timeline by 60-70% compared to the industry standard while providing complete transparency in the audit process. The offering is the culmination of over a year of research and development by a team of seasoned IT auditors with over three decades of combined experience in IT audit and attestation services.

“With Laika’s technology, Laika Compliance is able to provide the highest quality infosec audits using powerful software for a frictionless customer experience,” said Leith Khanafseh, managing partner of Laika Compliance. “Our infosec audits are reproducible and efficient, with processes built for tech companies by a tech company. Our customers receive reports in half the time of traditional CPA and infosec audit firms, freeing up our assessors from having to perform tedious audit tasks, and instead of guiding our customers to identify and assess prominent cyber security risks.”

Christopher Dawe, Managing Partner and Head of Growth Equity Partners at J.P. Morgan Private Capital, and lead investor for Laika’s recently announced Series B said, “J.P. Morgan Growth Equity Partners is pleased to have led Laika’s Series B raising as the company looks to improve the security posture of emerging companies across the US. Laika is well-positioned to bring transparency and automation to a large and complex market.”