#37 - Kalyani Ramadurgam, Co-Founder & CEO at Kobalt Labs

Slice of Finance Team

04/16/2025

#37 - Kalyani Ramadurgam, Co-Founder & CEO at Kobalt Labs

Join us on this week's episode of the Slice of Finance podcast, hosted by Jared S. Taylor!

Our Guest: Kalyani Ramadurgam, Co-Founder & CEO at Kobalt Labs.

What you’ll get out of this episode:

Startup Origin Story: Kalyani Ramadurgam and her college friend-turned-cofounder founded Kobalt Labs after joining Y Combinator, diving into fintech compliance challenges.
AI for Compliance: Kobalt Labs automates manual compliance tasks for banks and fintechs, reducing error rates and headcount needs.
Enterprise-Ready & Scaling: After a stealthy start, the company is now focused on enterprise distribution and expanding its team.
Trusted Adoption: Initial hesitancy from banks has given way to growing trust and adoption, with regulators and institutions now vouching for the platform.
Customer-Driven Roadmap: Kalyani meets biweekly with every client, using feedback to shape development priorities and build high-impact features.

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From AI Researcher to Fintech Founder

Kalyani Ramadurgam, CEO and Co-Founder of Kobalt Labs, took a leap into entrepreneurship after years in tech as an AI researcher and engineer. Motivated by a desire to blend technical prowess with creative problem-solving, she and her co-founder entered Y Combinator and committed full-time to building something impactful—before even knowing what the final product would be.

Solving a $25-Billion Problem with AI

Compliance and risk management are pain points for nearly every financial institution. With rising enforcement actions and increasingly complex regulations, Kobalt Labs emerged to address this issue using AI. Their platform functions as a digital compliance analyst, drastically reducing the time and resources needed for tasks like policy review and third-party risk management.

For fintechs, this means faster onboarding of new vendors. One client cut document review times from days to under 20 minutes, while avoiding the need to hire 10 more people. For sponsor banks, it enables responsible program growth—doubling fintech partnerships without expanding compliance teams.

Building Trust in a Skeptical Industry

AI adoption in banking hasn’t been swift, but it’s accelerating. Early on, convincing banks to trust a new AI tool was tough. But now, with regulators using Kobalt themselves and successful implementations under its belt, the platform is gaining traction. As Kalyani notes, “It all comes down to trust.”

Customer-Led Product Development

What sets Kobalt apart is its obsession with user feedback. Every two weeks, Kalyani meets with each client to discuss what’s working and what isn’t. This constant feedback loop informs the product roadmap. A common customer request—automated regulatory language suggestions—became a top-priority feature. This level of responsiveness is rare, and it’s why startups like Kobalt often outperform larger incumbents.

What’s Next: Growth Mode Activated

With its core product stable and clients onboard, Kobalt Labs is ready to scale. The company is hiring aggressively and focusing on enterprise distribution. This marks a new chapter as they move from stealth to spotlight—an exciting evolution for a startup built on precision, partnership, and AI innovation.