Who are Delve founders Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar?

Compliance startup Delve issued its first public response to a wave of allegations circulating online, attributing the claims to a “targeted cyberattack” while acknowledging internal lapses linked to rapid growth.

The statement follows allegations from late March 2026 that compliance certifications issued to hundreds of Delve clients may have been fabricated.

In its April 4 statement, the company said it could not comment earlier due to “ongoing cybersecurity and forensics investigations.” The allegations questioning Delve’s audit processes and internal controls drew scrutiny from customers and its backer, Y Combinator.


ET reported that Delve has since parted ways with Y Combinator, according to cofounder Selin Kocalar. The accelerator also removed Delve’s profile from its startup directory.

Founded in November 2023 by Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar, Delve is headquartered in San Francisco and was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2024 batch.

The company builds software to automate compliance workflows, helping businesses obtain certifications such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR. Such certifications are crucial for startups seeking enterprise clients, signalling that the company meets widely recognised security and privacy standards.

The startup recently closed a $32 million funding round at a $300 million valuation led by Insight Partners, Forbes reported.

Also Read: Delve row explained: What led to its split from Y Combinator

Who are Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar?

Delve’s cofounders, Karun Kaushik and Selin Kocalar, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, holding bachelor's degrees in artificial intelligence (AI) while also pursuing scientific research projects.

The Indian-origin entrepreneur, Kaushik, co-founded Delve in November 2023 and leads operations, including product execution, audit delivery, and customer onboarding.

Prior to Delve, he worked as a research assistant at the MIT Department of Chemistry from June 2021 to March 2023, focussing on computational biology. His work included building parallelised algorithms to predict protein stability.

He began his career as a junior analyst at Amplo in 2020, working on due diligence and financial analysis. The same year, he founded DemocratizeHealth, a pandemic-era project aimed at diagnosing Covid-19 and pneumonia from X-ray images. The initiative ran until August 2023.

Selin Kocalar co-founded Delve alongside Kaushik and serves as chief operating officer (COO), overseeing strategy, customer experience, and go-to-market functions.

Her background, like Kaushik’s, is rooted in scientific research. Both founders worked at the Broad Institute in the Feng Zhang Lab between September 2022 and May 2023, contributing to CRISPR-based gene editing research.

CRISPR is a gene-editing technology used to modify DNA sequences with high precision.

Earlier, from January 2021 to December 2022, both were involved in the “Genes in Space-9” programme at the International Space Station National Laboratory, where they worked on validating biosensors in microgravity.

Delve leadership responded

As part of Delve leadership, both cofounders addressed the concerns and presented their side of the story.

Kaushik wrote, “We believe the attacker purchased Delve under false pretences, exfiltrated internal company data, and used it to launch a coordinated smear campaign. The posts rely on a mix of fabricated claims, cherry-picked screenshots, and stolen data taken out of context.”

As part of its response, Delve outlined a series of corrective measures, including rolling out a new auditor network, offering free re-audits and penetration tests for customers, and expanding transparency around audit communications.

Delve said it plans to release additional details as the investigations progress. “We are not going anywhere,” the founders said.