Aahel Iyer, who grew up in Calcutta and relocated to the US to pursue a degree in product design, has an ambitious plan of using artificial intelligence to halve the time required to complete a financial audit.
Teaming up with Kieran Taylor, a machine learning engineer with a background at Amazon, Instacart, and Deloitte and Max Maio, a San Diego native, with software expertise from his tenure at PayPal and other high-growth start-ups, Iyer incorporated Midship in 2024 in San Fransico with an idea to harness the power of AI to initially develop a document data extraction product with horizontal application across industries and then expand the focus on financial audit industry.
"Our journey began when we met and became friends while working at a start-up in 2023. We spent months meeting after work, chatting about problems and the state of AI and dreaming about product ideas. In June 2024, we finally decided to take the leap and do it," Iyer said.
Explaining the scope of using AI in financial audit, Iyer said that a typical public financial audit currently takes approximately 8-12 weeks — a duration largely driven by routine, manual tasks and extensive back-and-forth communications with clients.
"These low-value activities, which require little to no judgment, consume a significant portion of the audit process. By leveraging AI agents to automate these repetitive tasks, we free up auditors to focus on the more critical, judgment-based work that adds true value. This approach not only reduces costs and speeds up the process but also democratises high-efficiency practices across the industry."
"On a personal note, my parents have both been lifelong government servants in the income tax department. There was some overlap in the audit processes that I have peripherally been exposed to," he said.
"While the Big Four are investing in internal AI initiatives, our platform, Midship, is designed to empower firms of all sizes to achieve comparable efficiency gains," he added.
Iyer said that the firm is in the process of onboarding several early pilot customers to their AI audit platform.
"The results have been incredibly promising, and we continue to refine our product by rapidly iterating on feedback from these initial partnerships," he pointed out.
Funding
Iyer said that to date, a total of $705,000 has been raised in the pre-seed round. Y Combinator, which has backed over 5,000 start-ups including names such as Airbnb, Doordash, Reddit, Twitch, Zepto and Groww among others, is an investor in Midship.
"We are gearing up for our seed round, planned for April/May, which will be instrumental in scaling our team, accelerating product development, and driving overall growth. A significant portion of the forthcoming funding will be dedicated to expanding our enterprise sales force — a critical move given the competitive and high-touch nature of the enterprise market," said Iyer.
Complementary
Automation of audit processes using AI generates concern over employment. However, Iyer said that the company's approach is not about replacing human auditors but rather augmenting their capabilities.
"Our platform is built to work in tandem with human auditors, ensuring that all AI-driven processes are subject to human oversight — a critical requirement in this highly regulated industry," said Iyer.
"This collaborative model has resonated well with our clients, who appreciate that it not only accelerates the audit process but also maintains robust accountability in the event of any discrepancies," he said.
