Galvanize (formerly known as ACL Services Ltd. and currently branded as Diligent) is a privately owned software as a service (SaaS) company founded and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.[1] The Company builds security, risk management, compliance and audit software for the governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) market.
Diligent's office in Vancouver is where many of the former Galvanize team work. In addition to Diligent offices in the UK, Ireland, Singapore, India, Australia and Mexico, they also have a number of representatives and partners around the world, including throughout Africa, France, Germany, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and China.
While working in the Faculty of Commerce's Division of Accounting at the University of British Columbia in 1972, Hartmut J. Will (Hart Will) developed the first interactive audit software, "Audit Command Language" (ACL) for data bank and model bank audits.[2]
In 1987, Will and his son, Harald Will, launched the commercial business ACL Services Ltd. Harald Will grew the company as founder & CEO until inviting Laurie Schultz to assume the role of President and CEO of ACL in 2011.[3][4]
In 2012, ACL expanded into the electronic work papers market with the acquisition of Workpapers.com, led by Dan Zitting.[5] The acquisition signaled the shift by the company towards a cloud-based, SaaS business model.[6]
ACL acquired digital design firm Artletic LLC in 2015.[7]
ACL took its first outside funding in the form of a $50 million strategic minority investment led by the growth equity team at Norwest in December 2017.[8]
In March 2019, the company was named one of "Canada's Best Managed Companies."[11]
In May 2019, the company rebranded from ACL to Galvanize.[12]
In March 2020, Galvanize was once again named one of "Canada's Best Managed Companies" for the second consecutive year.[13] Galvanize was also named a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Governance, Risk, and Compliance Software for Q1 2020.[14]
In February 2021, Galvanize announced that they had been sold to Diligent Corp.[15]
The HighBond platform was designed for security, risk management, compliance, and audit professionals. In 2023, it was rebranded the Diligent One platform. Using an organization's data, these professionals use the platform to:
manage threats
assess risk
measure controls
monitor compliance
expand assurance coverage.
The Diligent One Platform is a cloud-based platform that doesn't rely on third-party vendors and is hosted on Amazon's infrastructure.[16]
