Founder and CEO at ZeroDrift
Kumesh Aroomoogan
Repeat AI founder. Built one of the first NLP platforms for finance, raised $60M+, scaled to 100+ employees, and led the company to acquisition in 2025. Forbes 30 Under 30 (AI). Been building AI for financial services since 2014. Spent 12 years shipping NLP products to global banks and asset managers, helping enterprises extract and analyze unstructured data across regulatory filings, research reports, and call transcripts. Recognized on Gartner's Hype Cycle, acquired by Wand AI in 2025, where I led fundraising to a $1B valuation. Now building ZeroDrift, backed by a16z Speedrun. The first platform that enforces compliance, security, and organizational policy on every communication before it's sent, across every channel where humans and AI write.
Questions & Answers
What's the story behind your company?
I started ZeroDrift after building Accern and deploying AI into banks and asset managers. The pattern was always the same: risky messages go out fast, compliance catches them too late. Now, with AI agents sending millions of messages autonomously, that model doesn't just break. It becomes impossible. ZeroDrift enforces compliance before any message is sent, whether written by a person or an AI. Ashok joined as Founding Head of Engineering after building AI and compliance infrastructure at Goldman Sachs and Microsoft for over two decades. Anand came on to build the enforcement layer, bringing his experience leading Chrome OS Enterprise at Google.
How is your team uniquely positioned to solve the problem you're tackling?
We built and scaled an AI company in financial services. Accern shipped NLP into banks, asset managers, and insurance firms, raised over $60M, and was acquired. We understand how regulated enterprises buy, deploy, and trust software at every level. Now we're building the enforcement layer for a world where AI agents communicate on behalf of enterprises. Ashok spent 13 years at Microsoft and led engineering at Goldman Sachs, building compliance and AI infrastructure at scale. Anand built Chrome OS Enterprise at Google, bringing the secure, always-on architecture our enforcement layer demands. We've built this kind of infrastructure before, and we've already sold into the institutions that need it most.
