Hicomply
A North East England-based compliance automation platform, backed by growth-capital firm BGF, that helps fast-growing businesses achieve and maintain ISO 27001 and other information-security certifications needed to win and keep enterprise contracts.
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Hicomply, founded in 2019 and based near Newcastle in North Shields, UK, builds an ISMS (information security management system) compliance automation platform aimed at helping small and mid-sized, fast-growing businesses achieve certifications like ISO 27001 quickly enough to unblock enterprise sales deals that require them. In 2021, growth-capital firm BGF backed the company with a £3M investment to scale the product.
Hicomply’s positioning targets a specific, common pain point: many smaller B2B software and services companies lose or delay enterprise deals because they lack a recognized security certification, and traditional ISMS implementation (consultant-led, spreadsheet-heavy) can take many months. The platform aims to compress that timeline through guided workflows and automation, competing in the same broad compliance-automation segment as Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe but with a specific focus on UK and European mid-market customers.
Innovation Matrix Assessment
Steady product development since 2019 with growth-capital backing since 2021, though no evidence of unusually rapid recent iteration.
Guided ISO 27001 workflows genuinely compress certification timelines for smaller companies that would otherwise rely on slow, consultant-led implementations.
A single disclosed £3M growth round from BGF in 2021 indicates real but modest momentum relative to the much larger raises seen by leading US compliance-automation competitors.
Applies established compliance-automation techniques to a specific growth-stage B2B segment underserved by larger, more enterprise-focused platforms.
Several years of operation and continued BGF backing suggest real customer usage, though no independent efficacy data was found.
Certification-gated enterprise sales remain a persistent pain point for growth-stage B2B companies, keeping this focused niche durably relevant.
Why CISOs Should Care
CISOs and security leads at smaller, fast-growing companies that keep losing enterprise deals over missing certifications get a guided path to ISO 27001 and similar credentials without a lengthy, consultant-heavy implementation project.
What Makes It Different
Hicomply is explicitly positioned around unblocking sales — framing compliance certification as a revenue-enablement problem for growth-stage companies — rather than a purely defensive risk-reduction exercise, and is built and funded from the UK/European market rather than the more crowded US compliance-automation segment.
The Matrix Verdict
47/100 — EMERGING / UNRANKED
A modestly-funded but genuinely useful UK compliance-automation platform addressing a real pain point for growth-stage B2B companies; solid operational fit for its target segment, with momentum and scale still well behind the larger, better-capitalized US compliance-automation leaders.
Editorial Note: Claims vs. Verified Findings
The £3M BGF investment and 2019/2020 founding are corroborated across the company's own press release, BGF's portfolio page, and third-party aggregators (Tracxn, CB Insights), though exact founding year varies by a year between sources; the 4.7/150-review rating cited in search results is a vendor-hosted review widget and was not independently audited.
Sources
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