Fintech @lightspeedvp • Ex @NewYorkFed • @ucberkeley undergrad • @chicagobooth MBA
San Francisco, CA
Joined December 2021
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Kat Zhang retweeted
posting more here. learnings from meetings with founders, operators, VCs, and life in general, plus the unhinged stuff. someone should be writing this era down as it happens.
Kat Zhang retweeted
We’re excited to lead Zaria’s $5.2M seed round to help scale its infrastructure for structured finance and digital asset-backed lending.
Co-founders Emily Barron and Keith Dallara are bringing real-time collateral monitoring to structured finance, which has traditionally relied on periodic checks.
Loan servicing, collateral management, and trustee services often sit with different providers.
Built for assets that never sleep, Zaria is helping bridge the operational gap between traditional credit infrastructure and the digital asset lending.
The funding will help grow their team and scale its servicing and collateral management infrastructure.
Congratulations to Emily, Keith, and the entire team!
CC @arfrank, @jmover, @katkzhang
Kat Zhang retweeted
Our 10-year vision for Plug goes far beyond just building a software marketplace for used electric vehicles.
I sat down with @drusenko to share how we're scaling physical logistics and vertical integration to capture double-digit market share by 2030.
Drop a comment below and tell us where you see the future of EV commerce heading!
Kat Zhang retweeted
Right now it feels like the fastest growing companies are research labs cosplaying as product companies. The product exists to tell them what to research.
Kat Zhang retweeted
Had fun going deeper on @andera_ai with @katkzhang. Audit work is undergoing rapid transformation thanks to AI. We discussed why they built a team that’s 50% auditors and 50% engineers, how that hiring philosophy shaped their product, and what they believe it takes to earn trust in such a critical industry.
It's been a pleasure working with @AryoPatel and @tinahhong since leading their Series A earlier this year. Thank you for bringing @lightspeedvp along with you on the journey!
An essential component of audit is trust.
We evaluated many companies going after this problem. On technical architecture, breadth of vision, and institutional credibility, we believed Andera was a clear outlier.
On this episode of The Investment Memo, Andera co-founders @tinahhong and @AryoPatel join Partners @katkzhang and @buckymoore to discuss why they built Andera this way, how customer trust became a product decision, and why they believe AI is uniquely positioned to fundamentally transform audit.
Tune into the full conversation below.
0:00 Welcome, Aryo Patel and Tinah Hong!
1:04 Why Start Andera, and Why SOX Control Testing?
2:13 How AI Is Transforming Enterprise Audit
4:34 Why Is AI Finally Transforming the Audit Market?
5:37 How SOX Data Can Map a Company’s Financial Ecosystem
7:10 Andera’s Vision for AI-Powered CFO Decisions
8:22 How Andera Builds Trust With Audit Teams
9:20 The Technology Behind Andera’s Platform
11:05 Why Andera Focuses on Complex Audit Problems
15:00 How the Big Four Are Adapting to AI and Where Andera Fits
16:47 Why Andera Accelerated Its Fundraising
18:06 Andera’s Long-Term Vision
18:50 Building Trust Around Financial Data
19:21 Closing Thoughts
Kat Zhang retweeted
Read more about Andera in our blog: lsvp.com/stories/audits-mome…
Kat Zhang retweeted
Internal audits affect nearly every public company, and yet much of the work still runs on systems that often lag behind. Andera seeks to make the process more efficient with AI.
Today, we are thrilled to announce that we are leading Andera’s $37M Series A, as they aim to help build the AI-native platform for audit.
Founded by @AryoPatel and @tinahhong, Andera’s platform is designed to automate audit workflows from end-to-end, from control testing to evidence gathering to exception management.
We believe that audit is one of the most consequential categories for AI transformation, and Andera is helping push the frontier forward.
Kat Zhang retweeted
Today, we’re announcing Andera’s $37M Series A led by @lightspeedvp, with participation from @BainCapVC, @pearvc, and @A_StarVC to build the future of AI auditing.
Andera builds agents that automate the manual audit work of our Fortune 10 clients and leaders in audit, turning weeks of testing into minutes.
As the world has gotten more digitized, auditors’ tools haven’t kept up.
We’re bringing together best-in-class auditors and engineers to solve the hard problem underneath that: reasoning over messy evidence the way an experienced auditor would. Thank you to our investors for believing in us, and to our clients for trusting us to do the work right.
Kat Zhang retweeted
Thanks Axios for writing this article about us: axios.com/pro/fintech-deals/…
Kat Zhang retweeted
Today, @andera_ai is announcing our $37M Series A led by @lightspeedvp.
The advice to not go into business with friends is wrong. Two years ago, I founded with my friend of 13 years, @tinahhong. Obviously, I chose correctly.
Together, we’re solving financial oversight. Come join us.
Kat Zhang retweeted
Every year, audit teams at public companies spend thousands of hours testing controls and producing work papers. This manual process has been conducted the same way for over 20 years, and costs public companies millions of $ annually.
Audit resisted automation for decades because it's a reasoning problem, not a rules problem. Long context reasoning models and agentic tool use have recently changed the calculus.
We are thrilled to announce @lightspeedvp has led a $37M Series A in @andera_ai, the AI audit platform that is already turning weeks of testing into minutes for Fortune 10 clients.
Audit's AI moment has arrived, and @lightspeedvp is proud to be working with @AryoPatel @tinahhong and team to pull this massive industry into the future.
cc: @katkzhang
lsvp.com/stories/audits-mome…
Thrilled to be leading Andera’s $37M Series A with @buckymoore!
When you meet @AryoPatel & @tinahhong, it is an undeniable that they are the founders who will build a new world for a 200+ yr regulated industry.
Come join a ride of a lifetime 🚀 @andera_ai is actively hiring!!
Kat Zhang retweeted
We’re growing our AI engineering team in SF. If you’d like to solve out of distribution data problems at scale, apply here (andera.ai/careers).
Thank you to @buckymoore, @katkzhang at @lightspeedvp, @ChristinaPhili5 and @rkhkimx at @Baincapvc, @GGuptaSF, @jhwindmueller, @kevinhartz from @A_StarVC, @pearvc, and more for their continued support.
Kat Zhang retweeted
Tech has decided that regulation is the enemy of progress, but innovation requires capital
Regulation builds the trust necessary to inject billions into markets
To enable free innovation, Andera raised a $37M series A led by Lightspeed to scale financial oversight with agents
Kat Zhang retweeted
.@PlugMotors is building the marketplace infrastructure for buying and selling electric vehicles, purpose-built for EV transactions across dealers and commercial partners. We’re proud to lead their $20M Series A announced today.
Congratulations to Founder & CEO @JimmyDouglas and the entire Plug team on building EV-native tools that bring speed, clarity, and confidence to the used EV market.
Cc: Lightspeed Partners @jmover and @katkzhang
Kat Zhang retweeted
Stablecoins have the greatest PMF in crypto.
@ay_o and I are back for Season 2 of A Very Stable Conference! 🎙️
📍 San Francisco
🗓️ March 5, 2026
Join us + @brale_xyz, @lightspeedvp and @raincards
Request an invite: averystableconference.com/
#AVSC2026
