This week, the situation surrounding compliance startup Delve has deteriorated significantly. New accusations from an anonymous informant known as DeepDelver include a claim that Delve supposedly utilized an open source tool and misrepresented it as their own creation without appropriate licensing attribution or financial agreement with the original creator.

According to the narrative, the Delve team proposed a no-code tool named Pathways to a potential client, who would later unveil themselves as the whistleblower DeepDelver. DeepDelver noted that Pathways resembled Sim.ai’s open source agent construction product, SimStudio, and inquired whether Pathways was based on SimStudio. The Delve representatives allegedly stated that they developed it independently, as claimed by the whistleblower.

DeepDelver subsequently provided purported evidence that this tool was, in fact, a fork — a modified version — of SimStudio, altered just enough to be claimed as Delve’s proprietary work. If validated, this would breach the Apache software license, necessitating credit to the original developer.

DeepDelver describes this as “theft of intellectual property,” which might be an overstatement, given that open source tools can be utilized freely, provided they are properly credited. Yet, the irony is significant: Delve, a company that claims to offer a compliance solution, might have infringed upon a software license.

Emir Karabeg, founder and CEO of Sim.ai, confirmed to TechCrunch that he addressed DeepDelver’s inquiries regarding the claims. He informed the whistleblower that Delve had no licensing agreement in place with Sim.ai.

“We were aware they intended to use Sim for something and later attempted unsuccessfully to sell them an agreement,” Karabeg relayed to DeepDelver. “I didn’t know they were going to market it independently as a stand-alone product.”

Compounding the awkwardness: Sim.ai was actually a customer of Delve, as Karabeg disclosed to TechCrunch. Both startups were graduates of the Y Combinator accelerator, and alumni often purchase each other’s services. Therefore, while Sim.ai compensated Delve, the reverse was not true.

Karabeg had previously shown empathy for Delve after the whistleblower made the initial explosive claim last week. DeepDelver had claimed that Delve was fabricating customer data and employing rubber-stamping auditors, allegations that Delve has refuted.

Since becoming aware of the Sim.ai allegations, Karabeg has not received further communication from Delve’s founders. “I was supporting my friends at Delve after the first article was published last week, but since I learned about this situation, we haven’t spoken,” he shared with TechCrunch.

The purported methods of Delve allegedly occurred before its Series A funding round, which was led by Insight Partners, claims the whistleblower. We have reached out to Insight Partners inquiring about this, as well as the respected VC firm’s due diligence processes.

It has come to our attention that Insight Partners’ 2025 blog entry detailing their rationale for a $32 million investment in Delve was temporarily unavailable on the firm’s website. The LinkedIn announcement regarding the investment has not yet been restored.

References to the Pathways tool on Delve’s website, along with several other pages, seem to have been removed. Delve did not reply to a request for comment, and the contact address for media inquiries listed on its website is no longer operational.

The allegations suggesting that Delve may have breached an open source license belonging to a customer and, evidently, a friend have sparked significant outrage on X, making it a trending topic complete with a critical community note.