With trust being the new currency that unlocks new markets and revenue streams, security and compliance should be top of mind for enterprises.

Based on the increasingly changing regulatory landscape, Vanta Inc. serves as a trust management platform that streamlines security reviews and automates compliance, ensuring that these features are not treated as bolt-ons so that businesses, such as SlapFive Inc., can focus on what matters the most, according to Stevie Case (pictured, left), chief revenue officers of Vanta.

“Trust is a differentiator, and that’s what many of our customers now see,” Case said. “It’s not just a checkbox exercise that they have to get done. It is truly something that they are putting forward as part of their offering to differentiate themselves as companies that build in a secure and compliant way. We are really excited about trust management, and the way we’re helping startups build trust in an increasingly complex world. It’s our bread and butter … a great example of that over at SlapFive.”

Case and Jeff Ernst (right), founder and chief executive officer of SlapFive, spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Lisa Martin at the “Cybersecurity” AWS Startup Showcase event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the importance of security and compliance from the onset, and how Vanta helps SlapFive attain this objective. (* Disclosure below.)

Making security and compliance a plug-and-play affair

Since trust should be in the bigger picture, SlapFive ensures that it’s in the firm’s bloodstream. Vanta has played an instrumental role in this achievement, because SlapFive didn’t have to reinvent the wheel as was needed was plugging into the firm’s platform, according to Ernst.

“It all comes down to trust,” he noted. “SlapFive actually fills a trust gap between buyers and sellers in the market by unleashing the customer voice. Where Vanta stood out was … you can plug into our hosting platform. You can plug into our database, you can plug into all the elements of our technology stack and pull out things to help make sure we’re compliant versus us having to be reporting on those things.”

By building a platform that helps enterprises prove trust and manage compliance and security in a tech-forward way, Vanta enjoys a customer base of more than 5,000, according to Case. As a result, Vanta ensures that a secure and compliant software market thrives.

“What many of our customers find out is they try to bring that software to market, and when they sell it, they’re asked, ‘Are you SOC 2 compliant? Are you HIPAA compliant? Have you thought about GDPR?’” she asked. “There are all of these regulatory considerations, privacy considerations that they face, and trying to address that in a way that is tech forward and rational can be very difficult, and that’s where Vanta comes in.”

Given that SlapFive is the ultimate expression of shared success, trust management is at the heart of the firm. As a result, SlapFive streamlines this process through Vanta’s prowess, and the success is evident because the company had to deal with stalled sales cycles before based on the numerous questionnaires that had to be filled, according to Ernst.

“In SlapFive, we are a customer marketing platform, and what that really means is that we let companies turn their customers into their best sales and marketing people,” he said. “The name comes from the whole premise that if you want your customers to help make your company successful, you need to help make them successful first. Now that we have Vanta, we’re now type two audited and certified as well, and we have the report and we can now proactively in our sales cycle.”

Early-stage startups should build compliance and security right out of the gate

Since compliance and security are not a one-time event, startups should incorporate them early enough, according to Case. As a result, Vanta comes in handy because it renders this objective from day one.

“Vanta provides a way for startups and larger companies to make sure they’re doing business with secure and compliant software vendors,” she stated. “We really advise, ‘Start early, start often, make it a program.’”

Building trust in a compliant way from day one is of the essence, especially in the current artificial intelligence era, where AI is taking the world by storm, Case pointed out. As a result, Vanta comes in handy, because it boils down to trust in the ever-changing regulatory framework.

“There’s a tremendous amount of innovation … AI is new on the horizon, and there’s so much enthusiasm to build with new technologies,” she noted. “It’s really critical to do that in a way that builds trust because trust is core to any business being successful.”

With trust management being top of mind for Vanta, the automated security and compliance company, is expanding ways in which it can assist businesses secure their software, according to Case. As a result, the firm is extending the complexity of the environment it addresses.

“We’re certainly known for SOC 2 … that was our early days bread and butter, and we do a lot of business powering SOC 2s for startups,” she explained. “We’re also powering ways to make answering questionnaires even easier. We really want to meet our customers where they are and help them deal with all the ways that they have to secure their business to prove compliance and to prove trust. If we can automate that, we’ll be there to do it.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the “Cybersecurity” AWS Startup Showcase event:

(* Disclosure: Vanta Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Vanta nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE