Arden YC Application

Spring 2026Active

Arden went through Y Combinator in the Spring 2026 batch as a B2B company. Below: what the company does, who founded it, and its application to YC, reconstructed question by question in the real YC form.

YC batch: Spring 2026
Industry: B2BFinance and Accounting
Team size: 2
Status: Active
Launched: 2026

Founders

Aryaman KhannaFounder
David LomelinCo-Founder

What Arden does

Arden is the AI-native platform for internal audit and SOX teams. We build AI agents that automatically pull evidence from your stack, test controls end-to-end, and produce audit-ready workpapers in minutes instead of weeks. Internal audit is a massive but underserved market. Every public company in the US is required to do SOX testing, yet teams still run it through spreadsheets and screenshots. Arden is the engine that does this work.

Arden's YC application, reconstructed

Y Combinator application

Arden, Spring 2026 batch. The real form questions, answered from public data.

Founders2
Company7
Progress7
Idea4
Equity3
Curious2
Batch Preference1

Company

Company name

Arden

Describe what your company does in 50 characters or less.

AI agents that automate SOX control testing

What is your company going to make? Please describe your product and what it does or will do.

We are building an AI-native platform that automates internal audit and SOX control testing for US public companies. Our AI agents pull evidence directly from a company's IT stack, run control tests end-to-end, and produce audit-ready workpapers in minutes instead of weeks. This eliminates manual spreadsheet work and screenshots that audit teams currently rely on.

Where do you live now, and where would the company be based after YC?

We live and work in San Francisco, CA, and the company will be based here after YC.

Explain your decision regarding location.

San Francisco is where both of us live and where the concentration of enterprise SaaS and AI companies is. It's also where we can access experienced early users in finance and accounting and where YC itself is based.

21 more answers in the full application

Founders, Progress, Idea, Equity, Curious, Batch Preference are in the full version. Create a free account to open it in YC Insights, next to every other YC batch.

See full application

Frequently Asked Questions

Is this the real Arden YC application?

No. Y Combinator keeps submitted applications private. This is a reconstruction: the real YC form questions, answered from Arden's public data (launch notes, founder backgrounds, product description). It shows how a company like Arden would present itself to YC, not the text they submitted.