MAVI Discloses $4 Million Seed Round Led by Harlem Capital

MAVI, a marketplace that places AI-proficient accounting and finance professionals with US companies, disclosed a $4 million seed round led by Harlem Capital as it emerged from stealth. The round closed in 2025 and was announced on Sept. 28, 2026, with Harlem Capital the only investor named. The company did not disclose its valuation or revenue.

Founded in 2023 by Molly Liu and Aman Puri, the startup had bootstrapped its way to profitability before taking outside capital, according to Harlem Capital. The firm said MAVI had grown to more than 100 customers without doing any marketing.

Henri Pierre-Jacques II, Harlem Capital’s managing partner, said the two founders met at college about a decade ago. Both studied finance at the Wharton School and have more than 18 years of combined industry experience, according to the company.

MAVI connects US employers with vetted accountants and finance staff based abroad, sourced from Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Africa. The company said its candidates are English-fluent and trained in US GAAP, and Harlem Capital said MAVI offers access to more than 3,000 finance professionals across more than 20 countries. Both said clients can hire in as few as five days.

Placements are full-time and long-term, designed to augment a client’s in-house finance team. Liu, the company’s co-chief executive officer, said MAVI concentrates on mid-level and senior hires. Roles listed on its website run from staff accountants and AP/AR specialists up to senior revenue accountants, FP&A managers and controllers, and also cover payroll specialists, financial modelling experts and crypto, property and nonprofit accountants.

The company also takes on the administrative work that has deterred many employers from hiring overseas, including cross-border contracts, legal and compliance obligations and payroll, Liu said. MAVI said its placements cost 50% to 70% less than local equivalents, and that it offers the top 2% of global finance and accounting talent.

Customers include personal care company Athena Club, investing platform Public.com, Crisp and Budderfly, according to Harlem Capital. Other companies featured on MAVI’s website include Verdant Robotics, Graphite Financial, Pine Lake, MotherDuck, Lendable and CFO to Go. Harlem Capital said MAVI works with venture and private equity-backed businesses, CFO services firms and public companies.

Liu said the US accounting profession is shrinking, and that many of the accountants who remain are not necessarily fluent in the AI skills employers need. She argued automation will make the shortage worse at the grades MAVI targets, because less entry-level talent will grow into mid-level roles.

“AI will automate away many entry-level roles in finance and accounting, which will further exacerbate the talent shortage at the mid-level experience level, given there will be less entry-level talent growing into the mid-level over time.”

Molly Liu, co-CEO, MAVI

Rather than easing the pressure on senior finance staff, Liu said, wider adoption of AI tools has increased it. Experienced employees are expected to contribute more reasoning skills as finance teams are pushed to do more with less.

What it means to be an accountant is also shifting, according to Liu. She described an AI-proficient accountant as someone with strong fundamentals who can direct AI tools, apply judgment to catch what they get wrong, integrate large language models into finance workflows and work with AI-native ERP systems. A traditional accountant, by contrast, has the fundamentals but only a basic understanding of how to incorporate or manage AI within finance.

Liu said many US companies have been reluctant to work with global talent, either because hiring and managing staff abroad is complex or because they doubt the quality of the candidates. She said a new wave of global finance talent meets a bar equal to or higher than that of US hires.

Before founding MAVI, Liu worked at Ramp, Lyft and Dropbox, an experience she said showed her that more automation tools cannot fix all the problems in accounting. Puri’s career runs from Wall Street training to fintech investing, according to Harlem Capital, and MAVI said its wider team includes alumni of SoftBank, Morgan Stanley, BCG, Meta, Turing and Gartner.

Harlem Capital said its investment rests on the view that AI makes experienced accountants more valuable, not obsolete. Automation removes tasks but not accountability, the firm said. Harlem Capital published its investment rationale on Sept. 30, two days after MAVI’s announcement.

“The future isn’t AI or accountants. It’s accountants who know how to leverage AI.”

Henri Pierre-Jacques II, managing partner, Harlem Capital

Liu said MAVI has a strong point of view on what the future finance team looks like, and that the company will keep its focus on high-skill placements.

“The work for us is focusing on that high-skill talent and that new layer of judgment that is paramount to all finance teams and all business functions as a whole.”

Molly Liu, co-CEO, MAVI

MAVI did not say how it plans to deploy the seed capital or whether it intends to raise further funding.