Tags: #AuditTech #AI #SeedStage #YC #Fintech #StartupProfile #SaaS
Intro
Meet Kieran Taylor, the co-founder of Midship AI, a seed-stage YC-backed startup that is reimagining how financial audits are done. Midship is building AI specifically for auditors—an industry that has traditionally been slow to adopt emerging technologies. By automating the most manual parts of audit work, they're helping firms scale without increasing headcount.
Product & the Problem It Solves
Every public company requires annual audits, which involve sampling transactions, matching documents, and preparing detailed work papers. This is often handled manually by junior auditors and outsourced teams. Midship uses AI to automate the preparation of audit work papers—matching documents like invoices and purchase orders to transactions in the ledger, verifying accuracy, and flagging discrepancies. This gives senior auditors a complete first draft to review rather than starting from scratch.
Key Features
Midship’s system works across a web app and an Excel add-in. Its natural-language configurability allows firms to apply their unique methodologies without writing code. The AI links every action back to the source document for transparency and review, making it suitable for regulated audit environments. Future development includes two-way sync with Excel, client request list automation (PBC tracking), and completeness checks using unstructured data like board minutes.
Background of the Founders
Kieran started in audit at Deloitte in London before pivoting to software engineering, eventually working at Amazon and Instacart. His co-founders—Max (engineering) and Ahil (design)—previously worked with him at Dashworks, another YC company. Their technical backgrounds combined with firsthand knowledge of audit workflows helped them identify automation opportunities that traditional vendors have missed.
TAM & Ideal Customer Profile
The U.S. audit market alone exceeds $200 billion annually, with the Big Four accounting for a significant share. Midship targets external audit firms initially, as their workflows are more standardized and regulated, making it easier to deliver value consistently. Over time, the product may expand to internal audit and adjacent compliance functions.
Competition & Differentiator
The most commonly cited tool in the space is DataSnipper—an Excel-based tool for linking documents to spreadsheet cells. Midship takes a fundamentally different approach: it starts with LLM agents and builds workflows on top, enabling deeper automation and scalability. While the end output may look similar (a complete work paper with linked evidence), Midship’s architecture enables broader functionality and better long-term adaptability.
Future Vision
Midship sees a world where sampling becomes obsolete. Instead of auditing a subset of transactions, AI will allow auditors to review everything continuously and in real time. Upstream, this means automating the request and intake process from clients. Downstream, it means surfacing risks from documents auditors might not have time to read—like board meeting minutes. Their goal is full audit automation with humans in the loop for oversight.
Hiring
Midship is a small team leveraging AI tools to move fast, so hiring is very intentional. They're looking for engineers who are product-minded, adaptive, and excited to work on zero-to-one problems. Collaboration, user empathy, and creative problem solving matter more than leetcode skills in this next generation of AI-native teams.
Outside of Work
Kieran is a long-time tennis player and a photography enthusiast. He recently picked up a Fuji Voigtlander lens and enjoys capturing street photography and cool scenes during his travels. These creative outlets help him decompress and recharge from startup life.