Dili found 1,393 problems hiding in the payroll

The solar developer had done what sensible organizations do. It had built spreadsheets, asked contractors to fill them out, and connected the results to a dashboard. Information was arriving. Progress could be displayed. Yet the essential question remained surprisingly difficult: were the people building the projects being paid and documented correctly?

Dili’s published account of an unnamed solar developer describes a system that tracked submissions without validating every underlying requirement. The company piloted Dili on 14 projects in Illinois and Virginia. Dili says it processed 606 payroll reports and more than 83,000 labor hours in approximately a week, identifying 1,393 issues. The client subsequently signed another work order.

Those findings are Dili’s account, rather than an independent audit. But the case presents a useful distinction for anyone buying business software. A dashboard can prove that a document exists. Establishing that the document says the right thing requires another kind of work. A tidy interface can make that difference wonderfully easy to overlook.

A dashboard can count files and miss the problem

Dili works in the unglamorous space between construction activity and the evidence that activity leaves behind. Its customers include developers, engineering, procurement and construction firms - EPCs - contractors, compliance teams and investors. The projects span energy, infrastructure, data centers and advanced manufacturing. Their paperwork involves multiple employers, classifications, wage rates and apprenticeship records.

The timing matters. A review at project closeout can reveal a problem after months of records have accumulated. Continuous checking creates the possibility of a smaller correction earlier. Think of the difference between discovering that a kitchen tap is dripping and discovering what it has done to the floor. The water is the same; the repair bill has acquired ambition.

In the solar pilot, apprenticeship issues outnumbered wage underpayments. That should interest a buyer accustomed to thinking of payroll compliance as a wage-rate lookup. Evidence about training programs and working hours can matter alongside the paycheck. The product must understand the relationship among records, not merely extract a number from a cell.

The deal room becomes a job site

Dili did not begin with construction payroll. Its 2023 Y Combinator launch introduced an AI due diligence platform for investment teams. Stephanie Song, Brian Fernandez and Anand Chaturvedi had worked together at Coinbase. The early pitch grew partly from Song’s experience with the manual work involved in investment banking, corporate development and venture deals.

That product read deal-room documents, drew on internal knowledge and helped prepare investment materials. A later YC launch described confidence scores and highlighted passages that users could inspect. It also listed tax-credit diligence among its applications. The paperwork was already moving toward the territory Dili now occupies.

The public record shows the change in emphasis; it does not establish a single dramatic conversion. The continuity is more instructive. Whether the customer is evaluating an acquisition or financing a solar project, somebody must reconcile scattered documents before trusting a large financial decision. Dili followed that recurring task into a more specific market.

Current leadership lists Chaturvedi as CEO and Fernandez as CTO. Chaturvedi’s background includes Coinbase compliance systems and machine-learning research at Apple. Fernandez worked on Coinbase engineering infrastructure. Dili adds industry compliance specialists to that technical experience. The combination matters because knowing how to read a file and knowing what an enforcement professional will ask are separate skills.

Make the contractor’s mess legible

The platform offers certified-payroll review, wage validation, apprenticeship tracking, subcontractor monitoring and audit-ready reports. Look-back assessments address historical records; ongoing monitoring addresses incoming work. Dili also offers compliance training and project support. Its wager is that these activities belong in one connected process.

The practical detail worth stealing comes from the solar pilot. One contractor supplied hours and pay rates in separate spreadsheets. Dili describes combining them and developing a repeatable template. A buyer should ask for precisely this kind of demonstration: show what happens to the awkward file, including the exception that needs a person.

“We look at everything, every report, every wage determination, every week.”Anand Chaturvedi / July 2026 company announcement

Continuous review still depends on records arriving, relevant rules being represented correctly and flagged issues receiving attention. A system cannot check an hour it has never been told about. Human responsibility therefore remains central to the workflow. Automation can shorten the distance between evidence and action; it cannot make that distance disappear by declaration.

Two ways to buy the same relief

Dili sells both a platform and managed compliance engagements. That gives customers a choice about who operates the process. A developer with an established compliance team may want software. Another may want contractor onboarding, document follow-up and specialist review handled together. The person who buys the dashboard is not always the person who wants to run it.

The alternatives include established certified-payroll software such as LCPtracker, consultants and internal spreadsheets. Dili’s distinctive argument is the combination of flexible document intake, ongoing checking and service support. A useful comparison would test the actual payroll formats, reporting obligations and staffing burden of a project, rather than award points for the presence of AI.

Borrow the pilot, not the promise

The funding announcement names EDF, Radiance, Heelstone and Borea as customers and reports more than 700 projects. It also describes plans to expand into broader audit and waste detection. Those ambitions will need the same mundane proof as the payroll product: correct findings, useful reports and people who act on them.

For a prospective customer, the solar pilot suggests a sensible sequence. Start with a bounded set of difficult records. Count the exceptions. Verify what they mean. Decide who will resolve them. Measure the recurring work left behind. A polished demo is pleasant company; a troublesome spreadsheet is a much better interviewer.