Long confined to an end-of-chain validation function, regulatory compliance now tends to be integrated from the first design phases, in the same way as engineering or the supply chain.
Launching a product in multiple markets involves navigating a regulatory environment that is fragmented, evolving and highly jurisdictional. An object as common as a connected bicycle helmet can mobilize more than a hundred distinct requirements, from material standards from the R&D phase to local certifications, labeling constraints or customs obligations. This complexity is not a one-off overload, but a structural phenomenon, amplified by the multiplication of regulatory frameworks, whether the digital product passport or extra-financial reporting obligations such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
In this context, compliance is no longer limited to a legal requirement, but becomes an operational time-to-market variable, capable of accelerating or blocking marketing. It is precisely on this point of friction that Cleo Labs is building its proposal. The startup is developing an artificial intelligence platform designed to transform a heterogeneous regulatory flow into structured data, directly usable by product and compliance teams.
Its architecture is based on MARIA, a multi-agent system capable of continuously monitoring more than 25,000 regulatory authorities in 106 countries. The objective is not only to aggregate information, but to contextualize it according to a given product and market, then to extract operational obligations. The platform thus makes it possible to generate compliance checklists in advance and to ensure continuous monitoring of regulatory developments, with an analysis of their impact on activities. Each result is validated by legal experts according to a “human-in-the-loop” principle, which aims to preserve a level of reliability compatible with industrial decisions.
This hybridization between automation and human validation reflects a tension specific to RegTech. The challenge is not only to produce information, but to make it usable without transferring excessive legal risk to users. Cleo Labs attempts here to reconcile scalability and responsibility, in an area where errors can result in product recalls, financial sanctions or logistical blockages.
“Our ambition is to transform regulatory compliance, currently perceived as a constraint, into a strategic lever for companies. Thanks to AI, it becomes possible to anticipate rather than suffer,” explains Naomie Halioua co-founder of Cleo Labs. Compliance is thus no longer thought of as a final filter, but as an anticipation tool integrated into development cycles.
The testimony of Decathlon, already a user of the solution as part of a pilot, also sheds light on this development. “At Decathlon, our challenge is to capture very precise information in the midst of a massive volume of international product regulations, with both a legal and technical challenge: managing our global compliance while supporting our engineers in product development. This is the bridge that we are building with the PoC conducted with Cleo: their AI engine acts as an intelligent translator that filters the noise to extract structured data, directly actionable by our teams and essential to guide the design within our PLM,” explains Philippine Tamic.
The growth of RegTech is no longer based solely on the needs of the financial sector, but now extends to industry, retail and companies operating on international value chains. The intensification of normative production acts as an exogenous driver, making this type of solution progressively essential. In this logic, compliance tends to become an infrastructure, comparable to what cybersecurity or data management has represented over the last decade.
The announced funding round is part of a seed phase. It is led by Larry Berger, with the participation of Kima Ventures, Financière Saint-James and several figures from the technological ecosystem, including Boris Paillard, Ambre Soubiran, Stéphanie Zolesio and Charles Sutton. The startup also won the regional final of “The Pitch by Deel” at Station F, which allows it to benefit from additional funding and access to the international final in Dubai.
Founded in 2023 by Naomie Halioua, an engineer graduated from École Polytechnique, and Anaëlle Guez, from the Sorbonne and Panthéon-Assas University and former Chief Transformation Officer at Havas, Cleo Labs is developing an artificial intelligence platform dedicated to the regulatory compliance of products internationally. The company has raised 1.5 million euros to accelerate its technological development and commercial expansion, with the ambition of transforming compliance into a function integrated into industrial processes.
