AI compliance startup Graceview raises $1.5 million for global expansion

AI compliance startup Graceview has landed $1.5 million in a seed round led by entrepreneur Patrick Linton, with participation from a number of unnamed overseas tech founders and investors.

The fresh cash injection will be used to further build out the platform and expand its sales and marketing in Australia and abroad.

Launched in 2023, Graceview provides real-time insights on compliance threats and opportunities through AI, machine learning and data analytics. It also recently won an iAward in the startup category under its previous name, Gracenote.

The business was founded by a group of lawyers and a computer scientist who were frustrated with what they saw as inefficiencies in current compliance solutions.

All three co-founders experienced issues in previous roles across leading financial services companies as well as ASX and Wall Street-listed businesses.

“We have seen and experienced the stress that the constant state of not knowing whether you are in or out of complaint creates,” Simon Quirk, co-founder and CEO of Graceview, said to SmartCompany.

“We believe that keeping on top of regulatory change and remaining compliant should and can be effortless by leading on technology, ease of use, and using humans where it’s needed–  and that belief is at the centre of everything that we do and where we will take our solution.

According to Quirk, the platform addresses the evolving nature of law and regulations as well as the belt-tightening in legal, risk and compliance teams with the use of AI.

“Our leadership in AI and law means that we know how to utilise the best of leading-edge AI as it develops. But we also know the limitations, so we also know what still has to be reviewed by lawyers to ensure accuracy,” Quirk said.

“A key to our approach is how granular the coverage is rather than getting updates on things you don’t need or, more importantly, missing updates.”

Graceview says it offers bespoke coverage, monitoring even the most obscure obligations relevant to a business. It does this through a combination of generative AI, as well as human oversight from a lawyer.

The data is then structured, with the platform creating tasks, timelines, reports, and dashboards to make the data easy to read and use.

The platform is able to check regulations every 30 minutes, which is then checked by a lawyer to confirm the update. It also creates registers of obligations that are automatically updated when regulations change.

“We were talking to a UK-based food exporter who was hit with a fine over a change in packaging regulations in Moldova. We can cover that so they won’t be caught again. No other services can be that specific,” Quirk said.

Over the next 12 months, Graceview plans to build out the platform further as well as expand its footprint in Europe and Asia. At present, it has 11 employees but is looking to hire across tech and sales in the near future.

Its long-term goal is to make compliance completely automatic.

“For example, if there is a regulatory change, systems and documents are reviewed and automatically updated where necessary. That’s where we see regulatory compliance going and that we will be the ones to make that happen,” Quirk said.