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

The journey of selling software to businesses can be a drawn-out affair. Once potential clients recognize the value of a product, they still face the daunting task of verifying that it satisfies all necessary security standards. Chas Ballew experienced the arduous nature of vendor security and compliance reviews firsthand during his tenure at Aptible, a healthcare hosting platform he co-founded in 2013. "Each time our customers aimed to finalize a deal, they were required to repeatedly justify their security and compliance measures," Ballew shared with TechCrunch. The process of completing lengthy questionnaires could take software vendors weeks, creating delays that impacted both sales closures and contract renewals. Recognizing the inefficiencies, Ballew launched Conveyor in 2021, a startup focused on streamlining and automating the cumbersome customer security approval processes. With the advent of OpenAI's ChatGPT shortly after Conveyor's inception, the startup seized the chance to integrate AI into its offerings. Despite some enterprises being hesitant to embrace AI technologies, Conveyor's clients welcomed the opportunity to offload monotonous tasks to the system. "The security reviews are often redundant and repetitive," Ballew noted. "Customers feel they don’t derive much value from it, so they are more than willing to let AI manage the compliance forms." According to Ballew, Conveyor was the first AI-driven vendor to be fully operational in production settings at major companies like Zendesk, Atlassian, and Qualtrics. Its clientele also includes notable names such as Workday, Netflix, and Zapier, along with over 400 additional companies. The startup claims that its AI agent can autonomously and accurately respond to more than 90% of customer security inquiries, significantly speeding up the sales process and saving clients countless hours. Building on its early triumphs in security reviews, Conveyor is now launching AI-driven automation for requests for proposals (RFPs), a crucial element in many sales processes. This expansion is anticipated to draw a new wave of clients from beyond the tech industry, enhancing the startup's attractiveness to investors. The introduction of this new product has already contributed to Conveyor securing $20 million in Series B funding, led by SignalFire, with additional support from Oregon Venture Fund and Cervin Ventures. Conveyor's approach underscores a compelling application of AI in an area that many people find tedious. However, achieving complete automation of this process necessitates careful safeguards. "We maintain a high level of security and isolation for each customer, which is paramount," Ballew explained. "Organizations want reassurance that their sensitive data is exclusively used for processing their information, without any risk of it merging with others' data." Conveyor is not the only company tackling these lesser-known challenges faced by sales teams; other startups like Loopio, Responsive, and Rohirrim are also developing solutions for RFPs and security inquiries.