Kalyani Ramadurgam, the Indian-origin co-founder of Kobalt Labs, alongside former Affirm software engineer Ashi Agrawal, have created it to the Forbes 30-Under-30 United States List for 2026 in the finance category.
Founded in 2023, Kobalt Labs applys machine learning (ML) and artificial innotifyigence (AI) models to comb through “mountains of documents”. It supports banks vet their business partners, ensure compliance with financial regulations and promptly disclose security breaches, as per Forbes.
Who is Kalyani Ramadurgam?
Kalyani Ramadurgam formerly worked at Apple, where her role involved preventing individuals on terrorism watch lists from utilizing Apple Pay, according to Forbes. Despite Apple’s technological prowess, she was “shocked that the compliance process was analog and tedious”, requiring thousands of pages of documentation to be reviewed manually.
She informed the publication, “It meant reading through not just hundreds, but thousands of pages of documentation. Organisations were just throwing bodies at the problem.”
This frustration inspired her to co-found Kobalt in 2023 with Agrawal, aiming to “bring compliance into the machine-learning age”.
What does Kalyani Ramadurgam’s Kobalt Labs do?
According to Forbes, Kobalt Labs applys AI to support banks comb through massive amounts of data and documents to review their partners. Its tool ensures compliance with financial laws, including disclosure of security breaches, halting money transfers from sanctioned countries and more.
The company has raised $13 million in funding and has over 20 customers, including Celtic Bank and Bilt.
Forbes 30-Under-30 US 2026: Full list of Indian-origin achievers
The Forbes 30-Under-30 US 2026 list, released on 2 December 2025, features achievers who collectively raised $3.8 billion in funding. The average age is 27 years, with the youngest being 17.
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