Kobalt Labs
Kobalt Labs provides an AI-powered compliance and risk management platform for financial institutions and fintechs. Its AI agents automate third-party risk management, internal audit, and vendor oversight workflows, reducing review times from hours to minutes while generating defensible evidence trails.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2023
- HeadquartersNew York, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Kobalt Labs does
Kobalt Labs is a New York-based, venture-backed company founded in 2023 that provides an AI-powered risk and compliance automation platform for financial institutions and fintechs. Its core product uses AI agents to automate workflows including third-party risk management, internal audit, vendor management, and fintech partner oversight, operating on text and structured data to identify present and missing controls and generate evidence trails suitable for regulatory discipline. The platform is positioned to reduce compliance review cycles from hours to minutes while producing defensible risk assessments for banking customers.
The company serves over 20 clients across banks, commercial banks, and fintechs, with Bankwell (approximately $3.5 billion in assets) publicly disclosed as a customer. Distribution is enterprise field sales — direct engagement with financial institutions rather than channel partners or self-serve — supported by Y Combinator alumni credibility, industry press coverage, and case study content. Underlying AI capabilities span process automation, anomaly detection, autonomous agents, predictive analytics, and knowledge retrieval, with differentiators cited as performance speed and vertical specialization in financial compliance.
Kobalt Labs operates a SaaS subscription revenue model with quote-based enterprise pricing tailored to institution size and scope. The company has raised $13 million in total funding, including an $11 million Series A in December 2025 led by First Harmonic with participation from Alloy Labs and Y Combinator. Use of funds is explicitly directed toward customer base expansion and product feature enhancement, indicating an early but active go-to-market scaling phase.
Kobalt Labs firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Kobalt Labs
- Website
- https://kobaltlabs.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2023
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Kobalt Labs provides an AI-powered compliance and risk management platform for financial institutions and fintechs. Its AI agents automate third-party risk management, internal audit, and vendor oversight workflows, reducing review times from hours to minutes while generating defensible evidence trails.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Kobalt Labs industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Financial Services Compliance Software
- NAICS
- Management Consulting Services (54161)
- SIC
- Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)
- akta.pro primary industry
- AI Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Platforms (HDAAAMAA)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Enterprise AI Governance, Risk & Compliance Platforms (Model Risk, Audit, Policies) (HDAEANAE), Third-Party Risk, Vendor Due Diligence & Supply Chain Compliance (BPAEAPAG), Model Risk Management & AI Governance (validation, monitoring, explainability) (FSAGAFAL)
Keywords
Where Kobalt Labs is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- New York
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
Kobalt Labs business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- SaaS/Platform Subscription: AI-powered compliance platform delivered as a subscription service to financial institutions. The company has over 20 clients including fintechs and financial institutions managing large assets, suggesting an enterprise subscription model with recurring revenue.
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels1 record
Marketing channels3 records
Kobalt Labs product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Kobalt Labs provides an AI-powered risk and compliance platform for financial institutions and fintechs. The platform uses AI agents to automate third-party risk management, internal audit, vendor management, and fintech partner oversight, compressing review cycles from hours to minutes and producing defensible risk assessments with evidence trails for regulatory discipline.
Product overview
Kobalt Labs offers a single unified AI platform for financial institutions that automates risk and compliance tasks. The core product is an AI-powered risk and compliance platform designed to help banks and fintechs manage third-party risk, internal audit, and vendor oversight. The platform uses AI agents to automate workflows, identify present and missing controls, and generate evidence trails for regulatory discipline. The company serves over 20 clients including fintechs and financial institutions managing large assets, having raised $13 million total from clients and investors.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Kobalt Labs AI Platform AI-powered risk and compliance platform that automates vendor management, third-party risk management, internal audit, and fintech partner oversight for financial institutions and fintechs. Reviews that previously required hours are completed in minutes, and the platform produces defensible risk assessments and evidence trails for regulatory compliance.
Quantifiable outcome
- Reviews that previously required hours completed in minutes
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Kobalt Labs
Customer profileNamed customers1 record
Segments2 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
Kobalt Labs technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability7 records
Feature4 records
Kobalt Labs partnerships and signals
Strategic signalScale indicators4 records
Recent moves5 records
Expansion highlights4 records
Kobalt Labs competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- ComplyAdvantage: AI-driven AML, KYC, and fraud detection platform for banks and fintechs. Comparable as a vendor of AI-native compliance tooling to financial institutions, with broader transaction-monitoring scope than Kobalt's current offering.
- Socure: AI-driven identity verification and fraud risk platform for banks, fintechs, and regulators. Named alongside Kobalt, with overlapping customers (large US banks) and overlapping value proposition around AI-powered risk decisions.
- Sardine: AI-native fraud, AML, and compliance platform purpose-built for fintechs and banks. Comparable to Kobalt in targeting digital financial institutions with AI-agent-led risk and compliance automation.
- Alloy: Identity and risk decisioning platform for banks and fintechs. Explicitly named alongside Kobalt in industry coverage as an AI risk management player, making it the closest direct competitor in serving financial institutions with compliance automation.
- Sumsub: Identity verification, KYC/AML, and fraud prevention platform serving financial institutions and fintechs. Comparable as an AI-driven compliance automation vendor competing for the same financial-services compliance budget.
- Unit21: Risk and compliance infrastructure platform for fintechs and banks, offering transaction monitoring, case management, and KYC workflows. Highly comparable in serving the same fintech/bank compliance buyer with adjacent use cases to Kobalt's vendor and audit risk workflows.
- Persona: Identity verification and KYC/KYB platform used by financial institutions and fintechs. Named in the same Kobalt coverage, serving overlapping buyer personas with AI-driven compliance workflows.
Broad incumbents
- Drata: Continuous compliance and security monitoring platform automating SOC 2, ISO 27001, and adjacent frameworks. Comparable as a horizontal GRC automation player whose buyer base overlaps with Kobalt's fintech and bank compliance buyers.
- Vanta: Compliance automation platform for SOC 2, ISO 27001, and other frameworks, increasingly expanding into GRC for financial services. Comparable as a broader compliance automation incumbent that could expand into Kobalt's vendor risk and audit niche.
- AuditBoard: Audit, risk, and compliance management platform widely adopted by banks for internal audit and SOX workflows. Directly competes with Kobalt's internal audit use case and could bundle in AI-driven automation as a feature.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Kobalt Labs social profiles
Digital presenceKobalt Labs financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Kobalt Labs leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Kobalt Labs funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds2 records
Investors10 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Kobalt Labs M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Kobalt Labs
What does Kobalt Labs do?
Kobalt Labs provides an AI-powered risk and compliance platform for financial institutions and fintechs. The platform uses AI agents to automate third-party risk management, internal audit, vendor management, and fintech partner oversight, compressing review cycles from hours to minutes and producing defensible risk assessments with evidence trails for regulatory discipline.
Is Kobalt Labs a public or private company?
Kobalt Labs is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was Kobalt Labs founded?
Kobalt Labs was founded in 2023. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Kobalt Labs based?
Kobalt Labs is headquartered in New York, United States, in the North America region.
How does Kobalt Labs make money?
One revenue line is on record: saaS/Platform Subscription.
Who are Kobalt Labs's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are ComplyAdvantage, Socure, Sardine, Alloy, Sumsub, Unit21 and Persona. Broad incumbents are Drata, Vanta and AuditBoard.
Does Kobalt Labs have an API?
No public API is recorded for Kobalt Labs.
What industry is Kobalt Labs in?
Kobalt Labs's product category is Financial Services Compliance Software. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HDAAAMAA, AI Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Platforms, with a secondary code of HDAEANAE, Enterprise AI Governance, Risk & Compliance Platforms (Model Risk, Audit, Policies). Its NAICS code is 54161 and its SIC code is 7372.