When your product is trust, your security program cannot be a side project.
iGrant.io builds privacy and data-sharing infrastructure: consent management, verifiable credentials, and digital wallet technology that lets organizations exchange personal data with the individual in control. Their customers include regulated organizations that ask hard security questions before they sign. ISO 27001 was the answer those buyers expected.
The question was never whether to pursue ISO 27001. It was how to build a real ISMS without pulling a lean, product-focused team off the roadmap for months. iGrant.io ran the program on SecureSlate and saved more than 400 hours of manual compliance work along the way.
This guide covers:
- Why ISO 27001 mattered for a company selling privacy infrastructure
- What the program looks like when it runs on spreadsheets and shared drives
- How SecureSlate turned ISO 27001 into owned, trackable work
- Where the 400+ hours actually came from
- How to tell whether the same playbook fits your team
Related guides:
- The ultimate ISO 27001 guide
- Preparing for an ISO 27001 audit: your ultimate roadmap to certification
- Benefits of compliance automation for ISO 27001
- ISO 27001 templates: your fast track to information security
Key takeaways
- Trust is the product. iGrant.io sells privacy and data-sharing infrastructure, so buyers expect a mature, certifiable ISMS, not a policy folder.
- ISO 27001 by hand is a time sink. Risk registers, Statement of Applicability, policies, evidence, and internal audit prep add up to hundreds of hours when they live in documents and email.
- SecureSlate made ISO 27001 a system of record. Mapped controls, ready-to-adapt policy templates, automated evidence collection, and one dashboard for owners and leadership.
- Outcome: 400+ hours saved on the ISO 27001 program, time that went back into product, customers, and partnerships.
At a glance
| Company | iGrant.io, privacy and data-sharing infrastructure (consent, verifiable credentials, data wallets) |
| Industry | Technology / privacy tech |
| Buyer pressure | Regulated customers and partners expect certified information security before they share personal data |
| Framework | ISO 27001:2022 |
| Who this is for | Lean product teams that need ISO 27001 without hiring a compliance department |
| Business outcome | 400+ hours of manual ISO 27001 work saved, with a program the team can keep running |
Why ISO 27001 was not optional
iGrant.io operates where privacy, regulation, and data exchange meet. Their platform helps organizations collect consent, issue and verify credentials, and share personal data in ways that keep individuals in control.
That puts them in an unusual position. Most companies get asked about security. iGrant.io gets asked about security by buyers whose own compliance depends on the answer. A public sector body, a bank, or a healthcare organization evaluating consent or wallet infrastructure wants to know:
- Is there a documented, risk-based ISMS?
- Who owns each control, and how is it monitored?
- Can you show evidence, not just a policy PDF?
- Will the program still be running next year, or was it built for one audit?
ISO 27001 is the internationally recognized way to answer all four at once. For a privacy-tech company selling into Europe, it shortens security reviews and removes a common reason deals stall.
What ISO 27001 looks like without a system
ISO 27001 is not hard because any single requirement is complicated. It is hard because there are so many of them, and they all need an owner, evidence, and a review cycle.
Without a dedicated platform, small teams typically run into the same walls:
- The blank-page problem. Scoping the ISMS, writing the information security policy, and building a risk methodology from scratch before any real security work starts.
- Risk registers in spreadsheets. Risks, treatments, and owners drift out of date the week after they are written.
- Statement of Applicability by hand. Justifying every Annex A control in a document that nobody wants to maintain.
- Evidence scavenger hunts. Screenshots, exports, and access-review records collected manually and stored in folders named after the auditor.
- Policy acknowledgement chasing. Emailing people to read and sign policies, then tracking replies in yet another sheet.
- Status by meeting. Leadership asks "are we ready?" and the answer takes a week to assemble.
For a team building infrastructure that customers depend on, every one of those hours comes straight out of engineering, product, or sales.
Why iGrant.io chose SecureSlate
iGrant.io needed ISO 27001 to run as a program, not a project. SecureSlate gave them:
- ISO 27001:2022 mapped out of the box. Clauses 4 to 10 and all Annex A controls broken into owned tasks, so the team started with a plan instead of a blank page.
- Policy templates built for auditors. Ready-to-adapt policies covering the ISMS, access control, cryptography, supplier security, incident response, business continuity, and more, with tracked employee acknowledgements.
- A living risk register. Risks, treatment plans, and owners in one place, linked directly to the controls that mitigate them.
- Automated evidence collection. Integrations with cloud, identity, and code systems that collect evidence continuously, so audit prep is an export, not a scramble.
- One dashboard for everyone. Control owners see their next action. Leadership sees readiness in real time. Auditors get an organized data room.
The result was an ISMS that fits how a product company actually works: owned tasks, automated evidence, and status anyone can check without a meeting.
Where the 400+ hours came from
"Saved 400+ hours" is the headline. Here is what sits underneath it. These are the ISO 27001 workstreams that consume the most time when done manually, and what changed when they moved into SecureSlate.
| ISO 27001 workstream | Manual approach | With SecureSlate |
|---|---|---|
| ISMS scoping and context (clauses 4 to 6) | Workshops and documents written from scratch | Guided setup with prebuilt structure |
| Policies and procedures | Drafting dozens of documents, then chasing sign-offs | Templates adapted in hours, acknowledgements tracked automatically |
| Risk assessment and treatment | Spreadsheet register that goes stale | Living register linked to controls and owners |
| Statement of Applicability | Hand-written justification for every Annex A control | Generated from the control set and kept current |
| Evidence collection | Manual screenshots and exports every audit cycle | Continuous collection through integrations |
| Employee onboarding and training | Separate tools and manual tracking | Security awareness training and tracking in the platform |
| Internal audit and management review | Rebuilding the story from scattered files | Readiness dashboard and organized audit packet |
| Status reporting to leadership | Weekly check-in meetings | Real-time dashboard |
None of these steps disappeared. ISO 27001 still requires real decisions about risk and real security work. What disappeared was the overhead around the work: drafting from zero, chasing people, copying evidence, and reconstructing status.
Results that matter to buyers
| Before SecureSlate | After SecureSlate |
|---|---|
| ISO 27001 as a large manual project | ISO 27001 as an owned, trackable program |
| Policies and risk register written from scratch | Templates and a living risk register from day one |
| Evidence collected by hand before each audit | Evidence collected continuously |
| Readiness answered by meeting | Readiness visible on one dashboard |
| Engineering and product time pulled into paperwork | 400+ hours returned to the roadmap and customers |
Impact in practice
- Saved more than 400 hours of manual ISO 27001 work.
- Gave control owners clear next actions instead of open-ended requests.
- Kept policies, risks, controls, and evidence in one system of record.
- Gave leadership and customers a security story backed by evidence, not promises.
- Built an ISMS designed to stay current between audits, not decay after certification.
Customer quote
"As a company building privacy and data-sharing infrastructure, our customers hold us to a very high bar on security. SecureSlate turned ISO 27001 from a mountain of documents into a clear program with owners and next steps. We saved more than 400 hours, and that time went straight back into building our product."
iGrant.io team
What 400 hours means for your team
Four hundred hours is roughly 10 full working weeks for one person. For a lean team, that is:
- A senior engineer spending a full quarter on product instead of paperwork.
- A founder or CTO spending their evenings selling and building instead of writing policies.
- Weeks of calendar time between "we need ISO 27001" and "here is our certificate" that your sales pipeline does not have to wait through.
Put a loaded hourly cost on those 400 hours and the math usually covers the platform several times over, before you count the deals that close faster because the security review is already answered.
Want to estimate your own number? Bring your scope, team size, and target audit date to a 30-minute demo and we will map it live.
Is this you?
The iGrant.io playbook fits if:
- Customers or partners are asking for ISO 27001 before they sign, or security reviews keep slowing deals.
- You have no dedicated compliance team, and the work is landing on engineers, the CTO, or a founder.
- Your policies, risk register, or evidence live in documents, spreadsheets, and shared drives.
- You want a program that stays current after the audit, not one you rebuild every year.
- You handle sensitive or personal data and trust is part of what you sell.
iGrant.io shows that a lean privacy-tech company can run ISO 27001 properly and still get 400+ hours back. The difference was not working harder. It was putting the program in a system built for it.
Ready to run ISO 27001 without losing a quarter to paperwork?
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Run ISO 27001 with SecureSlate
SecureSlate is the compliance workspace iGrant.io used to turn ISO 27001 into a program their team could run:
- ISO 27001:2022 clauses and Annex A controls mapped into owned tasks.
- Auditor-ready policy templates with tracked acknowledgements.
- A living risk register linked to controls.
- Automated evidence collection from your cloud, identity, and code systems.
- A trust center and data room so customers and auditors get answers fast.
- Add SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, and more on the same control library when you are ready.
Book a demo: See how SecureSlate runs ISO 27001
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FAQ
How much time did iGrant.io save with SecureSlate?
iGrant.io saved more than 400 hours of manual work on its ISO 27001 program, mainly in policy drafting, risk management, Statement of Applicability upkeep, evidence collection, and status reporting.
Why did a privacy-tech company need ISO 27001?
iGrant.io's customers use its infrastructure to manage consent and share personal data. Those buyers need confidence that the vendor's own security is mature and independently verifiable. ISO 27001 is the internationally recognized standard that provides it.
Does SecureSlate support ISO 27001:2022?
Yes. SecureSlate maps the ISO 27001:2022 clauses and Annex A controls, including the 2022 control set, into owned tasks with templates and evidence collection.
Do we need a full-time compliance hire to get ISO 27001?
Not necessarily. Like iGrant.io, many lean teams run ISO 27001 on SecureSlate with existing staff, because the platform provides structure, templates, and automation that a dedicated hire would otherwise build by hand.
Will our time savings be similar?
It depends on your scope, team size, and how much of your program is manual today. Teams starting from spreadsheets and shared drives typically see the largest gains. Bring your current setup to a demo and we will estimate it with you.
Can we add other frameworks later?
Yes. SecureSlate uses a shared control library, so work done for ISO 27001 carries over to SOC 2, GDPR, HIPAA, and other frameworks instead of starting a parallel project.
Disclaimer (legal note)
SecureSlate is not a law firm, and this article does not constitute or contain legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship. iGrant.io's reported time savings reflect their program; they are not a guarantee of your results. When determining your obligations and compliance with respect to relevant laws and regulations, you should consult a licensed attorney.
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