Petual Secures $20 Million to Innovate Audit and Compliance with AI Technology

In a robust move to enhance enterprise auditing processes, Petual has successfully raised $20 million in funding from prominent investors including Andreessen Horowitz, First Round Capital, and Cowboy Ventures. This investment marks a significant initiative to transform the landscape of internal audit and compliance through advanced artificial intelligence technology.

The Challenge in Compliance and Audit

In today’s corporate environment, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance and internal audits are notably resource-intensive and laden with manual tasks. Typically, auditors are faced with the cumbersome process of sifting through vast amounts of unstructured data, which includes everything from screenshots to PDF files. This labor-intensive cycle not only consumes time but also limits opportunities for critical risk management activities that require careful auditor judgment and collaboration with stakeholders. Notably, over $8 billion is spent each year in the U.S. merely on SOX compliance.

How Petual Stands Out

Petual's innovative platform is designed to introduce agentic AI into SOX testing and internal audit practices. This groundbreaking technology enables the autonomous execution of evidence collection and work paper generation on an enterprise scale, a feat never accomplished until now. By efficiently processing both structured and unstructured evidence types, the platform yields complete work papers in minutes—dramatically reducing the typical hours invested by audit teams.

The platform’s outputs are meticulously formatted to align with external auditor expectations, complete with detailed, source-traceable reasoning. Additionally, Petual incorporates a built-in review process that reinforces human oversight, ensuring that the accuracy and integrity of the audit process remain intact.

Demonstrated Efficiency Gains

After implementing Petual's solutions, companies can expect to experience efficiency increases ranging from 68% to 80% in their current SOX processes. Early adopters of this technology include notable firms across various industries, such as energy, software, and financial services, highlighting its versatility and broad applicability in the market.

According to Erin Dempsey Heuwetter, Head of Audit, Risk, and Compliance at Navan,