Molly Liu and Aman Puri are tackling the U.S. accounting shortage from a global angle. On Monday, they announced that their AI-powered talent marketplace MAVI, founded in 2023, has officially emerged from stealth. The service helps connect U.S. companies with top AI-proficient global financial and accounting talent within days.
Liu, the company's co-CEO, pointed out the problems facing the U.S. accounting industry today. She noted that the profession is shrinking and even those left are not necessarily fluent in the AI skills needed to help their enterprises grow. At the same time, she said, many U.S. companies do not like the idea of working with global talent because it is complex to hire and manage them or because they simply do not think the talent is good enough.
Liu previously worked at Ramp, Lyft, and Dropbox. She stated that working at these companies made her realize that more automation tools cannot fix all the problems in accounting.
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Mavi addresses cross-border hiring hurdles.
MAVI helps companies handle the unglamorous work that comes with hiring global talent, including managing cross-border contracts, legal and compliance, and payroll. Liu said the company focuses on quickly finding full-time, long-term placements that augment in-house finance teams, focusing on mid-level and senior-level positions.
Liu explained that AI will automate away many entry-level roles in finance and accounting. This will further exacerbate the talent shortage at the mid-level experience level because there will be less entry-level talent growing into the mid-level over time.
No matter how many AI tools are released to automate grunt work, companies still need experienced humans to make judgment calls on critical work. Liu noticed that the more AI tools a company adopts, the more pressure that adds to those in senior roles.
The role of an accountant is shifting
What it means to be an accountant today is slowly shifting. An AI-proficient accountant has strong finance and accounting fundamentals but can also direct AI tools to do work, apply judgment to catch what AI gets wrong, integrate LLMs into finance workflows, and use the latest AI-native ERPs and tools. A traditional accountant has accounting fundamentals but only a basic understanding of how to incorporate AI into finance and workflows or how to review and manage AI tools within finance.
Last year, the company raised a $4 million seed round led by Harlem Capital, which it had not announced until Monday. Liu stated the company now has more than 3,000 accounting professionals on the platform and enterprise clients that include personal care company Athena Club.
