Security and compliance, engineered at venture-stage speed.
For venture-stage teams, security stops being a back-office concern the moment an enterprise prospect asks for evidence. Baseline Telemetry Advisory is a boutique information security, cyber risk, and GRC delivery solution for venture-stage teams, built for exactly that moment. We act as your vCISO and readiness partner, scoping your programme against SOC 2, ISO 27001, or GDPR and giving you clear owners, tracked tasks, and exportable evidence packs your sales team can hand to buyers.
How we started
Baseline Telemetry Advisory grew out of a pattern that kept repeating. Readiness and advisory engagements for early-stage teams run at a different pace than a full-time programme: smaller in scope, and easy to schedule across EU and US hours. That made it possible to take on a steady run of them for good engineering teams with a real enterprise deal on the table and no internal security function to support it.
The pattern repeated often enough to be a signal: teams like this had no structured way to close the gap, short of hiring a full-time CISO before they could justify one, or trying to make do with software alone. Baseline Telemetry Advisory turns that pattern into a dedicated practice, built specifically for that gap.
Operating thesis
Compliance work fails when it is bolted on. We embed inside the engineering runtime, treat controls as first-class product artifacts, and hold the auditor-facing surface separately from the engineer-facing one.
Founders keep their velocity, auditors get the evidence they need, and enterprise buyers get an answer inside their procurement window instead of a two-week loop back to engineering. Handled this way, security speeds up deals instead of slowing them down.
- 01Controls are product artifactsEvery control has an owner, a task, and an evidence slot. Not a slide, not a spreadsheet cell.
- 02Auditor surface, separate from engineer surfaceEngineers see tickets and runtime. Auditors see a clean evidence pack. Neither reads the other's view.
- 03Scope to the buyer perimeterWe map controls to the frameworks your enterprise buyers actually ask about, not the full universe.
- 04No background pipesWhen we operate inside your tools it is scoped, named, time-bounded. No sync bots, no long-lived keys.
- 05Exports are the deliverablePDF, XLSX, DOCX, ZIP. Structured artefacts your team owns after the engagement closes.Registers, control libraries, and remediation plans ship in whatever format your team already uses: an import file shaped for Jira or Linear, a neutral CSV that maps onto Vanta, Drata, or Secureframe, or a self-contained Excel workbook with the scoring methodology built in if you run on a spreadsheet. The register is yours either way, no tool lock-in.
- 06Velocity is the constraintProgramme cadence tracks the procurement window, not a certification project plan.
A career spent building and leading information security and GRC programs across technology and financial services. Harold's path started in cybersecurity, strengthening digital security posture for IT training institutes, before moving into security operations and compliance at a global social media platform, then end-to-end ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA delivery at a project management software company, and most recently, enterprise IT risk management and governance, regulatory alignment across DORA, GDPR, and ISO 27001, and strategic security program leadership across the European arm of a multinational group spanning insurance, asset management, and financial services.
Who we work with
Seed to Series C engineering teams selling into regulated enterprise buyers. Typical windows span first enterprise deal, through initial certification, into continuous assurance beyond the badge.
- Sectors we serve
- AI & Data Platforms
AI/ML systems, high-risk AI deployments, data pipeline governance.
Financial & Web3 EcosystemsFinTech, InsurTech, RegTech, Web3, and PropTech infrastructure.
Enterprise SaaS & InfrastructureB2B SaaS platforms and developer tools (DevTools).
- Stage
- Seed to Series C
- Regions
- EU, UK, US
- Model
- Embedded advisory retainer + scoped milestones
Delivery pillars
A curated set of boutique services for venture-stage teams preparing for enterprise security reviews, certifications, and buyer due diligence.
Each pillar is scoped to your product, market, and buyer perimeter. We do not sell packaged compliance. If you don't already run Vanta, Drata, or similar, delivery happens inside our own workspace, no new tooling required. If you do, we work embedded inside it instead.
vCISO Advisory
Embedded security leadership for venture-stage teams. Program management, operational advisory, and incident readiness delivered without slowing engineering velocity.
Information Security Program
Policy suite, ISMS build-out, security roadmap, and a KPI and KRI pack reported to founders and the board.
Operational Advisory
Architecture and change reviews, vendor risk sign-off, and security input into product, engineering, and hiring rituals.
Incident Response & Readiness
Incident response playbooks, tabletop exercises, on-call triage, and a maintained 24h triage, 72h acknowledgement cadence.
ComplianceFast-Track
Audit-ready across the standards your enterprise buyers ask about. We lead with SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR, then add sector overlays or emerging regulation only when a buyer or regulator requires it.
Framework Readiness
Gap assessment and remediation plan scoped to the frameworks that apply to your product, market, and buyers.
Control Build & Evidence
Control design, owner mapping, and evidence pipelines wired into the tooling you already run.
Audit Management
Auditor liaison, sampling support, and remediation of findings through certification and renewal.
Risk Management& IT Controls
We keep the register lightweight and pragmatic for a venture-stage team, and only reach for heavier methodologies when a buyer or regulator asks for them.
Venture-Stage Risk Register
A lightweight risk register scoped to your product and stage. Appetite and tolerance set with founders. Focus on the risks that actually decide a deal or an audit.
IT General Controls
ITGC across access, change, operations, and backup. Owners named, evidence pipelines wired to the tools you already run.
Third-Party & Vendor Risk
Vendor onboarding due diligence, ongoing monitoring, SIG-Lite and CAIQ intake, and contractual security clause review.
B2B SalesEnablement
Close enterprise deals without a security bottleneck. Questionnaire response, buyer evidence packs, and live deal support across procurement and legal.
Questionnaire Response
We triage SIG, CAIQ, and bespoke buyer questionnaires with you, then leave you a maintained answer set you reuse on the next deal. Advisor-led, delivered as documents you own.
Buyer Evidence Pack
Curated posture summary, certifications, pentest attestations, and NDA-gated artefacts packaged per prospect to shorten security review cycles.
Deal Support
Live security calls with enterprise procurement, and red-line negotiation on MSA and DPA security schedules. Advisor-led, delivered alongside the workspace rather than inside it.
Continuous Assurance& Recertification
Post-certification, compliance keeps running on a cycle. Scheduled gap assessments prevent drift between major audits and keep enterprise-ready evidence at hand.
Recertification cadence
Each cycle is scoped against change management, personnel growth, and regulatory shifts such as DORA and the EU AI Act.
Gap tracking
Controls carry a review date and an attestation history, so the workspace shows what is overdue, what is due next, and who signed off last time.
Living Audit Portfolio
Every cycle closes with an updated evidence bundle you hand to enterprise buyers and downstream auditors. Exports are unbranded: each file carries its own title and the generation timestamp only.
How embedded access works
Zero-trust access controls
When we operate inside your tools, access is scoped, named, and time-bounded: named accounts, least-privilege access, mandatory MFA, and clean offboarding. Read the full approach in the FAQ.