Below is our recent interview with Austin Ogilvie, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Thoropass:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to Thoropass?
A: Thoropass is the most fully-featured solution for digital compliance, including everything companies need to implement, operate, and continuously monitor effective security and privacy controls. We pair easy-to-use software tools with unmatched expertise to help customers manage and maintain auditable systems security and data privacy. Customers get a living and breathing compliance hub to ensure they are running a tight ship and not just going through the motions.
The technology landscape is experiencing rapid and broad changes due to common data security risks. We are all about helping our customers grow their businesses with confidence. We built Thoropass to ensure that compliance never becomes a blocker to innovation for our customers.
The name “Thoropass” encapsulates who we are as a company and what we do for our customers. It is a portmanteau from “Thoro” and “pass.”
“Thoro” is short for thorough and a nod to thoroughbred horses trained to perfection. Complete with regard to every detail.
The word “Pass” represents a passage that cuts through two mountain peaks and is the easiest route for people to travel across. It is the optimal and most frictionless way through.
Q: Who is your ideal client and why?
A: Virtually all companies process and/or store sensitive data–credit card numbers, home addresses, passport or ID numbers, blood types, maiden names, fingerprints or other biometric data, religious affiliations, etc.
So “big picture,” all companies need a baseline set of security and privacy controls regardless of what they do. Running a mature and auditable security and privacy program and being able to assure its effectiveness is simply non-optional.
Thoropass customers come in all shapes and sizes, from early- and growth-stage SaaS providers to large fintech and digital health companies to public companies in the supply chain, manufacturing, life and laboratory sciences, and beyond.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: We rebranded from Laika to Thoropass with a new name and visual identity. The entire process included a deep dive into what the company stands for and who we want to be, and it took ten months from start to finish. This rebranding coincides with a new growth phase for the company. We raised a Series C funding round in November of 2022 led by Fin Capital and Centana Growth Partners. We recently made key executive hires, including our first-ever CFO, Dicken Chaplin, and CRO, Bryan Caplin.
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Q: What can we expect from your company in next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: The host of security and privacy rules and requirements from enterprises, industry bodies, regulators, etc., is staggering. Some requirements are regulatory (e.g., HIPAA for companies interacting with patient health information), while others are non-regulatory yet pretty much non-optional (e.g., SOC 2 or ISO 27001). As the number of security standards has proliferated, so has the size of the challenge for companies to comply.
Complying with multiple standards is a huge task–companies must understand each standard and its nuances and then implement satisfactory controls correctly. This often has companies working with a half dozen or more vendors from CPAs, independent contractors, lawyers, auditors, and more.
Thoropass is a single pane of glass to manage and monitor your security program and ensure verifiable assurance across multiple standards in one place. Customers have a clear and strong desire to maintain their security controls and manage their IT audits and certifications together in one place.
We expanded the number of assurance products available to customers on-platform considerably. HITRUST and deeper ISO 27001 support are the two significant focus areas in the next three to six months.
Q: What is the best thing about Thoropass that people might not know about?
A: For prospective customers, we’ve done a TON to simplify digital compliance and infosec assurance:
- Game-changing IT audits (SOC 2, HITRUST, ISO 27001, and more)
- Continuous compliance monitoring 24/7
- Smart vendor discovery & management
- Security questionnaire jet fuel
Internally, we have an incredibly diverse team. Some fun facts include:
- We have employees across 11 countries and 25 states within the USA
- Average employee speaks 2-3 languages
- Approximately 50% of the company is considered non-white