Selling software to companies is such a time-consuming process. Even after customers are convinced a product is right for their organization, they still need to ensure the software meets all their security requirements.

Chas Ballew realized just how painfully slow and tedious the vendor security and compliance review process was when he was running Aptible, a hosting platform for healthcare companies that he co-founded in 2013. “What we saw was that every time one of our customers was trying to close a deal, they would have to explain all of their security and compliance practices over and over again to their customer,” Ballew told TechCrunch.

Filling out detailed questionnaires took software vendors weeks, often delaying the original sale and contract renewals. In 2021, Ballew left Aptible to found Conveyor, a startup dedicated to automating the lengthy customer security approval processes.

Soon after Conveyor’s launch, OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, and the company seized the opportunity to power its product with AI. While many enterprises remain cautious about adopting AI software, Conveyor’s customers embraced the idea of delegating the otherwise monotonous work to it.

“It’s very redundant and repetitive,” Ballew said about the security reviews. “[Customers] don’t feel it creates a ton of value, so they’re very happy for AI to fill out compliance forms.”

According to Ballew, Conveyor was the first AI vendor fully deployed in production environments at Zendesk, Atlassian, and Qualtrics. The startup’s customer base also includes Carta, Netflix, Zapier, and over 400 other companies, Conveyor says.

Conveyor claims that its AI agent can fill out over 90% of customer security questions fully, autonomously, and accurately, saving customers many hours and accelerating their sales process.

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Building on its success in security review, the startup is now introducing AI-powered automation for requests for proposals (RFPs), which are often necessary components of any sales process. Conveyor’s expansion into automating RFPs is expected to attract a wave of new customers outside the technology sector, significantly boosting the startup’s appeal to investors.

The new product has helped Conveyor attract more funding: a $20 million Series B led by SignalFire with participation from Oregon Venture Fund and Cervin Ventures.

In many ways, the work performed by Conveyor is a perfect use case for AI because most humans dread doing it. Still, full AI automation of the process demands extensive guardrails.

“We keep everything very secure, very isolated for each customer, which is very important,” Ballew said. “Companies want to make sure that their confidential data is only used to process their information and it’s not exposed or mixed in with anyone else’s data.”

Conveyer isn’t alone in addressing this lesser-known issue for sales teams. Other startups developing software for RFPs and security questions include Loopio, Responsive, and Rohirrim.

ENTERPRISE

Conveyor uses AI to automate the painful process of vendor security reviews and RFPs with AI