From SOC 2 to Continuous Compliance
Sam Li and Austin Ogilvie, co-CEOs of Laika, on the compliance-as-a-service business model
The real product is not a SOC 2 report, it is a system that makes a company look enterprise ready every day. Laika is built around connected systems, recurring checks, policy workflows, and an auditor workflow in the same product, so the customer is not just assembling evidence once a year, they are keeping controls live, handling buyer questionnaires, and reducing the messy handoff between software team and auditor.
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In practice, Laika starts by connecting AWS, GitHub, JIRA, HR systems, and other tools, then watches for concrete failures like missing encryption, access issues, or incomplete employee processes. That turns compliance from screenshots and spreadsheets into ongoing tests tied to real systems.
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The differentiator is the integrated audit layer. Many tools automate prep work, but Laika built software used by auditors too, so evidence can be shared, reviewed, and verified inside one workflow. That matters because audit quality varies widely, and manual handoffs are a major source of friction.
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Across the category, the business model moved from a one time, $50K to $100K consulting project into an annual subscription that supports recertification and expansion into ISO 27001, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and vendor security reviews. The winner is likely the platform that reuses one control set across many frameworks and buyer demands.
The market is moving from audit automation into broader security operations. As these platforms collect more live data about employee access, cloud settings, vendors, and controls, they become the system companies use to prove trust to buyers continuously, not just during audit season. That pushes the category toward multi framework compliance, trust portals, questionnaires, and eventually daily use security products.