Diligent
“Can a board-portal company become the dominant enterprise GRC platform by bundling governance, risk, compliance, and audit into a single AI-powered suite?”
Founded1994
HQNew York City, New York, USA
FoundersBrian Henry, Kiri Borg
Latest roundDebt
Valuation$7B+
IndustryVertical SaaS / Governance, Risk & Compliance
The story
Founded in 1994 as a creative agency, Diligent pivoted to SaaS board portal software, becoming the dominant secure board-meeting platform used by 65% of Fortune 1000 companies. After going private via Insight Partners in 2021, it accelerated an acquisition-led expansion from a single board portal into the largest GRC (Governance, Risk & Compliance) SaaS platform, with 1M+ users across 23,000 organizations. The company now positions itself as the unified 'Diligent One Platform' for board management, risk, compliance, and audit workflows, with AI features layered on top.
Product timeline
1994
Founded as Manhattan Creative Partners, later rebranded to Diligent Board Member Services.· pivot
2013
Listed on New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX: DIL) as a SaaS board portal company.· ipo
2021
Taken private by Insight Partners; accelerated acquisition strategy to expand GRC platform.· acquisition
2022
Expanded Governance Cloud into a broader GRC platform covering risk, compliance, and audit modules.· pivot
2026
Named a Leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Third-Party Risk Management; launched AI Board Member feature.· banking
The stack
0 layers disclosed in Diligent’s embedded-finance stack
Accounting gap: none