Keye, a Y Combinator-backed fintech startup (YC F24), has raised $5 million in seed funding to expand its AI-powered due diligence platform designed specifically for institutional investors and deal teams. The round was led by Sorenson Capital and General Catalyst, with participation from Y Combinator, Tiferes Ventures, Dunamu Ventures, Palm Drive Capital, and notable individual investors like Kaz Nejatian, Philip Rathle, and Clark Valberg.

Founded by Rohan Parikh, CFA, Keye is building an intelligent infrastructure for investment decisions. Instead of chasing AI hype, they're addressing a concrete pain point: the messy, inconsistent, and time-consuming diligence process that fund managers endure daily.

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Built by Investors. Engineered for Alpha.

Keye's diligence platform uses LLMs and proprietary analytics to transform unstructured deal materials - like pitch decks, financial models, and founder memos - into structured, benchmarked, and investor-ready outputs. This allows firms to cut through noise, identify red flags earlier, and make decisions with sharper clarity.

This isn’t about automating gut instincts. It’s about empowering them with structure.

In the rush to “AI everything,” founders often target the workflow. But in vertical SaaS, the biggest wedge isn’t replacing the task - it’s framing the decision.

Keye’s real leverage isn’t just automating diligence. It’s turning subjective deal review into repeatable pattern recognition. That’s what investors need. Judgment isn’t scalable, but the inputs that drive great judgment can be systematized. And when your product helps investors spot familiar failure patterns faster - unscalable CAC in early-stage SaaS, misaligned milestones, or ambiguous go-to-market - you’re no longer just a tool. You’re an extension of their edge.

If you’re building in B2B, especially in decision-heavy domains, the question isn’t “how can I make this easier?” It’s “how can I make what they’re already good at - 10x sharper, faster, and more repeatable?”

That’s how Keye positioned itself. Not by replacing investors - but by protecting what makes them world-class.

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Why Diligence Needs to Evolve in 2025

Despite venture capital maturing as an asset class, much of the diligence process remains stuck in an analog era. Emails, Excel files, PDFs, and verbal consensus still dominate workflows across even well-funded firms.

According to PitchBook, only 18% of U.S. VC firms use structured diligence platforms, with over 70% relying on ad hoc systems and subjective interpretation. This lack of consistency costs time, introduces bias, and creates downstream issues with LP transparency.

Keye’s product directly addresses these pain points. Its features include:

• Real-time risk detection
  
• Market benchmarking
  
• Insight-rich dashboards
  
• AI-parsed summaries from deal materials
  

With the rise of solo capitalists, microfunds, and faster deal velocity, platforms like Keye provide a crucial bridge between insight and execution.

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A Booming Opportunity in Vertical AI for Capital Markets

The global market for AI in fintech is projected to grow from $9.45B in 2022 to $31.71B by 2027 - a CAGR of over 27.6%. Within this, demand for AI-driven decision support in private capital markets is exploding.

Meanwhile, private markets continue to swell, with $3.3 trillion AUM globally as of late 2024. LPs and regulators are calling for stronger transparency and standardized diligence practices - creating an urgency to adopt structured, intelligent workflows.

Keye is ideally positioned at this intersection. It brings the speed and objectivity of AI without stripping out the nuance investors need. It's not replacing humans - it’s amplifying their strategic brainpower.

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What’s Next for Keye

With fresh capital in hand, Keye plans to:

• Expand engineering and data science teams
  
• Strengthen integrations with key data providers
  
• Roll out vertical-specific features for private equity, corporate VC, and family offices
  

CEO Rohan Parikh emphasizes that Keye is not a replacement for investment judgment - it’s a force multiplier. In a world where great deals move fast, investors don’t need more information - they need sharper frameworks for understanding it.

And that's exactly what Keye delivers.

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