W
hen she worked for Apple, Kalyani Ramadurgam’s job was to block anyone on terrorism watch lists from using Apple Pay. Even at one of the most sophisticated technology companies on the planet, she was shocked that the compliance process—making sure that the company was obeying financial laws and regulations—was still analog and tedious. “It meant reading through not just hundreds, but thousands of pages of documentation,” she says. “Organizations were just throwing bodies at the problem.”
In 2023, Ramadurgam founded Kobalt Labs with former Affirm software engineer Ashi Agrawal to bring compliance into the machine-learning age. Kobalt’s AI models sort through mountains of documents to help banks vet their business partners, ensuring they’re following the rules, like halting money transfers from sanctioned countries and promptly disclosing security breaches. Her startup has raised $13 million and has more than 20 customers, including Celtic Bank and fast-growing fintech company Bilt.
Ramadurgam and Agrawal are just two of the honorees on the 30 Under 30 list in finance for 2026, which covers fintech, crypto and traditional financial services. The winners were selected from nearly 800 nominations and were evaluated by four judges: Naftali Harris, cofounder and chief executive of fraud prevention firm SentiLink; Mellody Hobson, co-CEO of asset manager Ariel Investments; Arvindh Kumar, partner and co-head of private equity firm EQT’s technology sector; and Alana Palmedo, managing partner at crypto venture capital firm Paradigm.
