Unleash prepares for enterprise growth with continuous monitoring and SOC 2

The company

An open source platform transforming what it means to develop software 

Built with the developer community in mind, Unleash is among the largest open source feature management platforms available today. The company’s product centers around an innovative development method called “feature toggling.”

Feature toggling gives developers the ability to adjust specific features immediately, without triggering a full release cycle. When used effectively, feature toggles leave a lot more room for experimentation and analysis. Companies that use Unleash find that their time-to-market for new products becomes exponentially faster. They’re also able to gain more control over feature rollouts and updates.

Founded in 2019, Unleash is a company headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with a subsidiary in the US. In the spring of 2022, Unleash successfully raised $14 million in Series A funding, giving the company the runway it needs to really embrace its ambitions.

Unleash is increasingly attracting enterprise customers with the platform's ability to offer privacy-forward design, self-hosted SDK, and communication between regional instances. “We now have a great opportunity for some of the bigger players in the market to become more aware of Unleash, and, as a result, help them rethink how software is deployed,” says Unleash’s Head of Engineering Diego Susa.  

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The challenge

Generating growth through trust, security, and compliance   

In order to get their product in the hands of bigger prospects, Unleash needed a way to build, manage, and prove security protocols. Because developers handle sensitive user data on a daily basis, enterprise prospects considering Unleash typically require a long list of security protocols and controls. “The bottom line is that we can’t sell our product unless our customers trust us,” Diego says. 

Well before Unleash officially hit the market, the platform was intentionally designed with security, privacy, and safety at its core. To gain attention from large prospects, and evangelize the brand, Unleash needed a low-cost, automated solution to prove their security through compliance. 

“The primary motivation in partnering with Vanta is to win that customer trust, especially larger prospects in the US,” Diego says. “SOC 2 serves that purpose.”

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The solution

An automated, next-generation compliance solution 

As Head of Engineering, and with decades of experience in building software, Diego handles all things compliance at Unleash. His previous experience gives him a unique insight into the benefits of a platform like Vanta. 

“Before Unleash I worked at large companies,” Diego says. “Their approach to compliance was mostly manual, with lots of spreadsheets used for evidence collection. At Unleash, the founders have instead adopted Vanta. What a change—it’s truly next-generation compliance.” 

Historically, breaking into new markets through compliance required a significant investment of time and money. Vanta enables Unleash to pursue international revenue through compliance at a lower cost and time commitment. “We’re still a relatively small company, so we don’t have an IT department. Controlling security protocols such as encryption, anti-virus, and password protection—things that Vanta controls—is a worthwhile investment,” Diego says. 

While Unleash is focused on taking its brand to the next level, compliance automation has become an essential component of resource management and growth enablement. 

“Human-driven compliance is so slow that it will stifle your innovation and time-to-market,” Diego shares. “When it comes to compliance, automation is king. The platforms and tools we’re using to build our product generate more than enough evidence to prove security. You don’t need humans to do unnecessary work to prove your company is trustworthy.”

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The impact

Continuous monitoring leads to increased security and flexibility 

For a growing company that looks to onboard new employees, change is expected. This creates the need for a dynamic compliance solution that can be updated regularly without an overhaul. “As we gain newer, bigger customers, security inquiries become more challenging. Vanta provides a flexible way for me to make changes and updates to policies,” Diego says.

Vanta’s platform also helps Unleash prepare for audits with less-urgent notifications in regard to policy reviews and evidence collection. “After we did everything on our side, the audit took about one week,” Diego says.

Unleash enjoys flexible compliance management due to the continuous monitoring of its security infrastructure. Ongoing alerts and notifications enable Diego to stay on top of compliance tasks on a consistent basis. 

“The best way to avoid a big spike in our workload is to always make constant micro-adjustments. Continuous monitoring lets us know about small deviations, and then we fix them as soon as possible. I know if I react to those alerts immediately, I am making our company more secure,” Diego says. 

Vanta’s ability to integrate with Unleash’s infrastructure secures the lion’s share of the company's key functions. “Vanta continuously monitors the most important platforms we use to build software, mainly AWS and GitHub. 90% of what our developers do on a daily basis is within these two platforms. Vanta’s ability to integrate with them ensures our security,” Diego says.

Looking forward, Diego anticipates more growth and expansion for the company. “In the upcoming years, we may need to pursue ISO 27001,” Diego says. He is also exploring Vanta Trust Reports as a way to reduce friction and speed up sales cycles with potential enterprise customers.

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