Backing founders using AI to rebuild expert work in regulated professional services.
434 VC is a solo, technical-led seed fund. I back founders building the software firms run on, and the AI-native firms replacing them, across regulated professional services, with a center of gravity in finance and wealth.
The value is movingto the applied layer.
Foundation models are commoditizing. The durable advantage is moving to the companies that own a specific expert workflow end to end: organizing the domain knowledge, doing the work, and improving with every cycle. The winners won't be the ones with the best model. They'll be the ones who own the workflow and the trust that comes with it.
Regulated professional services
The biggest durable opportunities are in expert work where trust, accuracy, and compliance are the product itself.
Two ways to win
I back the software firms run on, and the AI-native firms rebuilding those services from scratch.
Operator-led founders
Builders with real domain depth who lived inside the workflow first.
Moats that compound
Proprietary workflow data, regulatory trust, and deep workflow entrenchment, not a better model or a slicker UI.
I've built AIwhere mistakes matter.
I've spent the last decade building production AI in regulated, high-stakes industries, finance and healthcare especially, where trust, compliance, and accuracy aren't optional. I evaluate founders as a builder who can read your architecture and product and tell you what's real, not a spectator.
Founders rebuilding regulated professional services with AI.
I invest at pre-seed and seed in founders using AI to rebuild expert work in regulated professional services. That means the software firms run on, and the AI-native firms replacing them. My center of gravity is finance and wealth, where I've built and have relationships.
What I'm tracking right now.
Sectors describe where I invest. These are the shifts I think actually matter inside them — the questions shaping the conversations I'm having with founders today.
Operator-led founders building vertical AI
The strongest seed-stage companies are built by people who lived inside the workflow before they tried to rebuild it.
Services businesses becoming software
Many enduring AI companies will begin close to the customer — through deployment or services — and evolve into scalable software over time.
Workflow data as the real moat
Foundation models are commoditizing. The durable advantage is the data captured from doing the work — labeled by experts, structured by the product, and improving with every cycle.
From copilots to agents in regulated industries
The first wave looked like assistants. The next wave actually executes work — under review, with audit trails, and against real workflows.
AI-native financial services
Wealth, fintech infrastructure, and compliance workflows are being rebuilt from the ground up around AI — not retrofitted onto legacy stacks.
Trust, accuracy, and the regulated edge
In industries where mistakes matter, the bar is not demo quality. It is production quality — explainable, auditable, and safe to ship.
A point of view, not a prediction · Updated periodically
More than a check.
434 VC is built for founders who want a technical partner with conviction about the build, the workflow, and the domain — not a passive line on the cap table.
A Technical Partner Who's Shipped
I read your architecture, model choices, and product the way a builder who's shipped would. Honest reads, sharper questions.
Buyer & Design-Partner Relationships
I have relationships with buyers and operators across finance, wealth, and legal. Where I can open a door for a design partner or first customer, I will. Where I can't, I'll say so.
Founder Community & Deal Flow
Through House of 434, YC, and my operator network, you plug into the rooms where this work is already happening.
An Active Investor, Not a Tourist
I've written checks and sat on the founder side. I know what helps at pre-seed and what's noise.
Stage, check size,and what to expect.
I invest at pre-seed and seed in applied-AI founders rebuilding expert work inside regulated professional services, typically as a lead or meaningful co-investor. I lead with technical conviction about the team and the build. Fund I is being raised now and actively making investments.
If you submit through the contact form, you can expect to hear back within five business days.
How I source.
My deal flow is earned, not paid for. Through House of 434, the community I convene, plus the YC network as a founder myself and a deep bench of ex-Google operators, I see strong technical founders early, often before they're raising.
The signal I weightmost heavily.
At the early stage, the single most important signal is founder-market fit: domain depth that goes beyond a deck, and conviction earned by living inside the workflow you're rebuilding.
I back founders who understand the buyer, the workflow, and the constraints of the industry better than anyone else trying to serve it.
A quick self-check.
Not every great company is a 434 VC company. The more of these that describe you, the more likely there's something for me to talk about.
- ✕AI wrapper without a moat
- ✕No founder-market fit
- ✕Unclear buyer
- ✕A services business with no credible software path
- ✕A team that can demo but can't ship to production
- ✕No path to venture-scale outcomes
- ✕Technology searching for a problem
These are not negotiable.
434 began as an address. 434 Bayview was the home where many of the most important chapters of my life began. Looking back, what stood out was not the house. It was what emerged from it. Conversations that became friendships. Friendships that became collaborations. Collaborations that became companies.
434 VC is built on that belief. That meaningful things often start small. That the highest-signal ideas and the strongest relationships live in private rooms long before they become visible.
434 VC exists to back founders building the future of software through AI.
Shilpi Nayak
Founder & Managing Partner, 434 VC
Shilpi Nayak is the Founder and Managing Partner of 434 VC.
She has spent the last decade building production AI in the industries where it's hardest to get right — finance, healthcare, and other regulated, high-stakes domains. As Co-Founder and CTO of Goodfin (YC), she built the AI platform from the ground up and co-led the launch of Goodfin Go, the system that opened access to the most sought-after private companies of this cycle — SpaceX, Anthropic, xAI, Cerebras — to a new generation of investors. Before that she spent four years at Google building large-scale machine learning across Search, Cloud, and user modeling, with earlier engineering work at Amazon, Akamai, and Intel.
Her work on AI in financial analysis has been featured in the Financial Times and CNBC. She has spoken at Money 20/20 and New York Tech Week, and has been an active angel investor for years, backing AI-native founders including Ottonomy and Thomas.
She started 434 VC to back the operators she knows best: builders turning hard-won domain expertise into the next generation of AI-native companies.
A community for founders, operators, and investors.
House of 434 is where founders, operators, and investors explore AI, capital, and company building together — intimate conversations, field notes, and gatherings around the questions shaping the applied-AI era.
House of 434 and 434 VC are separate: the community stands on its own, and I'm the common thread behind both.
Visit House of 434Building something ambitious?
I'm always interested in meeting exceptional technical founders replacing expert workflows with AI — especially in professional services and financial workflows.