THE controversy surrounding compliance startup Delve went from bad to worse this week. Among the new allegations of the anonymous whistleblower known as DeepDelver is the complaint that Delve allegedly took an open source tool and passed it off as its own work without proper licensing or monetary agreement with the original developer.
The story goes that the Delve team launched a no-code tool called Pathways to a prospect. This perspective would later become the DeepDelver whistleblower. DeepDelver recognized that Pathways was very similar to Sim.ai’s open source agent creation product called SimStudio and asked Delve if it was based on SimStudio. Delve’s people said they built it themselves, the whistleblower claims.
DeepDelver then presented alleged evidence that the tool was actually a fork – a modified copy – of SimStudio, modified just enough to appear as Delve. If true, this would be a violation of the Apache software license, which requires that the original developer be credited.
DeepDelver calls this “stealing intellectual property”, which is a bit of an exaggeration, since open source tools are freely available to use, if properly credited. But the irony is hard to ignore: Delve, a startup that claims to sell a compliance solution, may have violated a software license.
Sim.ai founder and CEO Emir Karabeg confirmed to TechCrunch that he responded to DeepDelver’s questions about the allegations. He told the whistleblower that Delve had no licensing agreement with Sim.ai.
“We knew they were planning to use Sim for something and then tried unsuccessfully to sell them a deal,” Karabeg told DeepDelver. “I didn’t realize they were going to sell it directly as a standalone solution.”
Adding to the embarrassment: Sim.ai was actually a client of Delve, Karabeg told TechCrunch. Both startups were graduates of startup accelerator Y Combinator, and Y Combinator alumni frequently buy each other’s products. So while Sim.ai paid Delve, Delve did not do the same for Sim.ai.
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Karabeg even expressed sympathy for Delve after the whistleblower dropped the first bombshell last week. DeepDelver initially alleged that Delve was falsifying customer data and using vetted auditors, allegations that Delve denied.
Since learning of Sim.ai’s allegations, Karabeg has not heard from Delve’s founders. “I was consoling my friends at Delve after the first message went up last week, but since I found out this news we haven’t been in contact,” he told TechCrunch.
Delve’s alleged methods preceded its Series A funding round led by Insight Partners, the whistleblower also claims. We reached out to Insight Partners to ask about this and the venerable venture capital firm’s due diligence process.
We know Insight Partners’ 2025 blog post explains why he led a $32 million investment in Delvefor a short period, unavailable on the venture capital company’s website. The firm LinkedIn Post about the investment has not been restored, at least for the moment.
Mentions of the Pathways tool on the Delve site, as well as many other pages, too appear has have been washed. Delve did not respond to a request for comment and the media inquiries address on its website no longer works.
Allegations that Delve violated the open source license of a client and, apparently, a friend, sparked such an outcry on X that it became a hot topic, complete with a scathing community note.