How MAVI’s Molly Liu Went From $800 to $1M ARR by Connecting U.S. Finance Teams With Global Talent
Molly Liu’s path to founding MAVI started long before she became the third product manager at Ramp. Born in Nanning, China, she moved to Ohio at age four, shared an apartment with three other families, and watched her parents work restaurant shifts while studying. That upbringing shaped her drive and her belief that opportunities have to be created. At Ramp she led growth product and saw firsthand that controllers and finance leaders who had adopted automation still felt overwhelmed. Software could remove repetitive tasks, but it could not replace experienced professionals who exercise judgment, question AI output, and own the outcomes. That insight became the foundation for MAVI.
She and cofounder Aman Puri began with just $800, 40 to 50 cold calls a day, and hundreds of manual LinkedIn messages. Their first meaningful customer was a Texas accounting firm, and they reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue in about eight months, before raising any outside capital. MAVI has since secured $4 million in seed funding and recently emerged from stealth with its AI-driven talent engine. Molly credits Ramp for teaching her to take ownership, move fast, and build from direct customer feedback.
Today MAVI connects U.S. companies with over 3,000 vetted accounting and finance professionals across more than 20 countries, admitting only about 2% of applicants. Customers report hiring in as few as five days and cutting annual talent costs by at least 50%, compared with equivalent U.S.-based roles. Looking ahead, Molly plans to expand into strategic finance and M&A, upskill talent for the AI era, and explore higher-level U.S. roles such as CFO, VP of Finance, and Controller. In this Q&A with Founded by Women, she shares how she spotted the gap, built the business, and what she believes the future of finance looks like.
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Q: What inspired you to start MAVI, and how did you translate your product experience at Ramp into building a business?
Molly: I immigrated from Nanning, China to Ohio with my parents when I was four. We had very little during that time, and we had given up a life in China with the move. We shared an apartment with three other families, and my parents worked restaurant shifts while studying. It was very tough. But that made me who I am and it’s why I work so hard. As a teenager, I worked part time as a server in a restaurant. That experience taught me a lot about service, resilience, and communicating with different kinds of customers. I learned early on that opportunities do not simply come to you. You have to create them and you need an environment that allows you to succeed. My parents stayed on in the U.S. as they believed it would give me a better life. That also instilled in me a strong desire to extend access to talented international professionals for whom opportunities are often confined to geography.
I was drawn to entrepreneurship long before I began MAVI. In college, I launched a custom denim company focused on body positivity, ran a Kickstarter and created a Shopify store to sell made-to-measure jeans.
After working at Lyft and Dropbox, I joined Ramp as its third product manager in 2021. At Ramp, I led all of growth product (which at time didn’t even exist), built out their self-service channel, and led the scaled customer success team. While there, I spoke frequently with controllers and finance leaders who had adopted automation but felt overwhelmed. Better software could eliminate repetitive tasks, but it couldn’t replace experienced professionals who understood the business. I also saw a need for experienced finance professionals who could exercise judgement, question AI-generated output and own the outcomes. That insight became the foundation for MAVI.
My cofounder, Aman Puri, and I began with an $800 investment. We made 40 to 50 cold calls a day, faced repeated rejections, and manually sourced our earliest candidates through hundreds of LinkedIn messages. The first meaningful customer we landed was an accounting firm based in Texas. We reached $1 million in annual recurring revenue within about eight months, before raising outside capital. Last year, we secured $4 million in seed-funding. And MAVI recently emerged from stealth, publicly launching its AI-driven talent engine. Ramp taught me to take ownership, move swiftly, and build from direct customer feedback. I applied those principles to how I started and scaled MAVI.
What problem is MAVI solving for U.S. finance teams, and how did you identify the gap?
Molly: U.S. companies are struggling to find experienced accounting and finance professionals particularly for roles that require technical expertise, leadership, and AI judgment. At the same time, routine finance and accounting tasks have been getting increasingly automated. And the talent shortage doesn’t help.
Sixty-one percent of finance leaders surveyed by the Controllers Council this year reported a talent shortage, up from 46% in 2025, and 44% of respondents said controller and assistant controller positions are the hardest roles to fill. Meanwhile, 93% of large companies surveyed by Deloitte in 2026 said they use AI across multiple functions, but only 43% of CFOs expressed confidence in their AI governance. That raises the stakes because finance teams need experienced professionals who can identify errors in AI-generated output, understand the nuances and context, and take responsibility for the final decision.I saw this gap at Ramp where controllers who were using automation were struggling to close their books and manage increasingly complex workloads. Highly capable accounting professionals exist worldwide, but they had no way of reaching U.S. companies. The only solutions that existed for international talent were outsourcing firms who used junior talent for data-entry type work.
MAVI bridges that gap between U.S. companies and highly skilled international finance talent, providing opportunities that previously did not exist. We combine our matching engine with rigorous human vetting to assess candidates’ technical acumen, knowledge, judgment, and AI fluency. Around 2% of applicants are admitted to our network, and we manage the onboarding, payments, and compliance once a match is made. Companies using MAVI’s platform have reported hiring professionals in as few as five days. According to our internal comparisons, our customers have also been able to cut annual talent costs by 50% to 70% compared with equivalent U.S.-based roles.
Rather than merely filling vacancies quickly, what we aim to do is help finance teams hire professionals with the accounting expertise and AI fluency of today's market demands.
What's next for MAVI?
Molly: We aim to make MAVI a trusted talent infrastructure platform for the next generation of finance teams. That involves continuing to improve our matching intelligence, expanding our network of rigorously vetted professionals, and helping companies identify the combination of technical knowledge, skills, AI competence, and the judgment required for each role. We’re excited about expanding the talent pool to other roles within finance, such as strategic finance and M&A, while also upskilling more of our Talent to prep them in the world of AI. Right now, MAVI operates in over 20 countries around the world; we are actively thinking about entering the U.S. market for some higher level positions such as CFO, VP of Finance, and Controller, all which have been in great demand.
On the product side, we are constantly improving our sourcing, vetting, and matching intelligence products, which enables us to move so quickly. We’ve built AI tools across the company that gives us a tremendous advantage over others in the recruiting market, and our vetting continues to evolve with the different levels of senior talent coming into our funnel.
We aim to provide more opportunities to talented international finance professionals who have historically slipped under the radar on grounds of their geography. There are millions of them within the finance and accounting field alone. I expect the future of finance to be more automated and globally distributed. But it will still depend on experienced professionals who can process information, interpret context and nuance, challenge systems, and own outcomes. We are building MAVI to step into that future.
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