How Kalyani Ramadurgam Built a $13 Million Compliance Revolution Through AI Automation
For Kalyani Ramadurgam, the entrepreneurial path was set long before she founded Kobalt Labs. She says: “I’ve wanted to start my own company for as long as I can remember. I can distill my thought process as being influenced by my brother, my work experience, and my thirst for doing something interesting.”
Growing up, Ramadurgam had a front-row seat to entrepreneurship through her older brother, who chose the startup path. According to her interview with SHOUTOUT LA, she shared: “As a kid, I saw my older brother choose the entrepreneurial path, and I admired how much hard work he put into choosing his own destiny, especially since I got a front row seat to all the ups and downs of starting a business. I can’t deny that I’ve been inspired by his journey, and he’s been an incredible source of motivation and support. I wouldn’t be where I am today without having him to look up to.”
During college at Stanford University, Ramadurgam gravitated to computer science and mathematics, but as she “always knew that I didn’t want to be a software engineer.” This clarity about wanting to do something beyond pure engineering would shape her career trajectory toward entrepreneurship and solving complex business problems.
When Kalyani Ramadurgam worked at Apple with the critical responsibility of preventing individuals on terrorism watch lists from accessing Apple Pay, she expected cutting-edge technology. Instead, she found herself buried in paperwork—thousands upon thousands of pages of documentation that had to be reviewed manually. Even at one of the world’s most technologically advanced companies, the compliance process was shockingly outdated.
The duo founded Kobalt Labs with an ambitious yet straightforward mission: leverage artificial intelligence to handle compliance workloads that had been overwhelming human teams for years. Their approach aims to bring compliance into the machine-learning era.
“It meant reading through not just hundreds, but thousands of pages of documentation,” Ramadurgam told Forbes. “Organizations were just throwing bodies at the problem,” she recalled, describing how companies relied on manual labor rather than technological solutions to handle regulatory requirements.
That frustration became the catalyst for a revolution in financial compliance—and earned the Indian-origin entrepreneur a coveted spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 USA 2026 list in Finance, announced in December 2025.
Building Kobalt Labs: A Stanford Connection
In 2023, Ramadurgam teamed up with Ashi Agrawal, a former software engineer at Affirm and fellow Stanford alumna, to launch Kobalt Labs. According to Y Combinator’s company profile, Ramadurgam serves as CEO of the New York-based startup. Her background includes conducting AI research at Stanford University, building financial security products at Apple, and developing health data analysis tools at Zenysis Technologies that were used by governments in 13 countries. She graduated from Stanford with both her Master of Science in Computer Science (concentration in AI) and her Bachelor of Science in Computer Science (AI), with a minor in Human Rights.
Agrawal, serving as CTO, brings infrastructure engineering expertise from previous roles at Affirm, Nuna, and Meta, along with a Stanford BS in Computer Science, according to Y Combinator.
The Mission: Bringing Compliance into the Machine Learning Era
The duo founded Kobalt Labs with an ambitious yet straightforward mission: leverage artificial intelligence to handle compliance workloads that had been overwhelming human teams for years. Their approach aims to bring compliance into the machine-learning era.
The company’s tools quickly analyze contracts, policies, and regulatory documents, flagging potential risks or compliance gaps in minutes—work that would normally take human teams much longer.
According to Y Combinator, Kobalt has built an AI copilot to automate manual risk and compliance operations for fintechs and banks. Given third-party contracts and documentation, Kobalt’s reasoning engine ingests internal policies and procedures, legal commitments, past privacy and compliance assessments, and syncs with external legislation to instantly auto-surface and track risks.
The system ensures companies follow critical regulations, from blocking transactions linked to sanctioned countries to promptly reporting security breaches—tasks that previously could take weeks or even months to complete manually, according to The American Bazaar.
Rapid Growth and Impressive Traction
The startup’s growth has been remarkable. Kobalt Labs has raised $13 million in funding. According to LinkedIn posts from the company, this includes an $11 million Series A round led by Ali Rowghani at First Harmonic, with participation from Alloy.The company now serves more than 20 clients, including Celtic Bank and fintech startup Bilt.
Under Ramadurgam’s leadership, Kobalt Labs has already transformed how banks and fintechs manage third-party risk, regulatory mapping, and contract review. As the company extends its capabilities into insurance, the implications for carriers, MGAs, claims organizations, TPAs, and the broader regulatory ecosystem are profound.
Top image, Center for Human Rights & International Justice, Stanford University/Facebook. This story was aggregated by AI from several news reports and edited by American Kahani’s News Desk.