This is a bet on regulatory infrastructure becoming core operating plumbing, because EU rulebooks are tightening while regulated firms cannot scale on spreadsheet-based compliance.
Lithuania-based Copla has raised EUR 6 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Iron Wolf Capital, with participation from Operator Stack, Specialist VC, Superhero Capital, FIRSTPICK, NGL Ventures, Loggerhead Partners and angel investors. The funding was recently announced.
Why this round fits the market right now
Copla is positioning itself squarely against an expanding set of EU obligations, including the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA), the EU AI Act and the Cyber Resilience Act. The company’s pitch is direct: as regulation gets sharper, compliance needs to move from periodic, manual preparation to continuous, system-driven execution.
That framing matches what regulated operators are living through. Compliance is no longer a quarterly scramble ahead of audits. It is increasingly a day-to-day operational discipline touching vendor risk, incident response, governance controls and evidence trails. Copla’s platform is built around real-time registers, workflows and evidence storage designed to replace spreadsheet processes.
The company’s CEO has publicly argued that tighter regulation is pushing regulated businesses to find ways to keep growing without “audit anxiety”. The product message aligns with a broader shift in European fintech and regulated SaaS: buying tools that make compliance repeatable, provable and less dependent on individual employees.
Traction suggests a real pain point
Copla’s early numbers indicate it is not selling a nice-to-have. Within a year of its seed round, the company reached seven-figure ARR and serves more than 100 regulated European customers, according to reporting cited in the announcement. For a compliance infrastructure product, that level of adoption typically reflects two things: frequent regulatory touchpoints and a strong need for structured evidence management.
The choice of investors also reinforces the thesis that compliance tooling is moving into the “infrastructure” bucket. Iron Wolf Capital, described as a pan-Baltic deep-tech and AI investor with a focus including defence, security and resilience, led the round. The syndicate includes Baltic and Scandinavian-linked investors such as Specialist VC and Superhero Capital, alongside Operator Stack and others.
What Copla plans to do with the capital
Copla says the EUR 6 million will be used to expand its real-time compliance infrastructure offering. In practical terms, that usually means deepening regulatory coverage, adding more integrations into customer systems of record, and building the operational backbone needed to support larger regulated clients with higher audit and reporting expectations.
For regulated financial services firms, the promise is straightforward: continuous compliance processes that are easier to evidence and maintain, rather than retrofitting documentation at audit time. Copla’s focus on DORA and adjacent EU frameworks places it in the path of budget that is increasingly non-discretionary.
Execution risks to watch
- Proof over promises: Regulated buyers will expect demonstrable audit outcomes. Product claims need to translate into cleaner audits, faster evidence collection and fewer control gaps.
- Framework breadth and change management: EU rules evolve, interpretations vary, and regulators do not move in sync. Maintaining accurate mappings and workflows across multiple regimes is an ongoing product burden.
- Procurement cycles and trust: Selling into regulated entities requires security posture, certifications and mature customer support. The bar rises quickly as customer size increases.
Outlook
Copla’s Series A is a credible signal that EU compliance is becoming a software-defined function, not an annual checklist. If the company can keep converting regulatory complexity into repeatable workflows and defensible evidence trails, it sits in a market where spend is driven less by experimentation and more by necessity.