# Ayush Sharma

> Ayush Sharma is the founder and CEO of Warp, an AI-native employee management, payroll, and compliance platform built for high-growth startups. An MIT computer science and physics graduate and former Yelp ML engineer, he started Warp out of Y Combinator's Winter 2023 batch to fix the government red tape he hated as a distributed-team founder. Warp now runs payroll across all 50 US states and 150+ countries for hundreds of startups, and in June 2025 raised an $18M Series A led by Sound Ventures.

- **Role:** Founder and CEO at Warp
- **Organizations:** Warp, Y Combinator (W23)
- **Nationality:** Indian (US-based, O-1 visa recipient)
- **Education:** BS, Computer Science and Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Master's, Computer Science (Systems and Machine Learning), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
- **Known for:** Founded and leads Warp, an AI-native payroll and compliance platform serving 380+ companies, Raised an $18M Series A in June 2025 led by Sound Ventures, with total funding of roughly $24-25M, Backed by Y Combinator, HOF Capital, SV Angel, Homebrew Capital, A-Star and Abstract, plus angels Drew Houston, Arash Ferdowsi, Kyle Vogt, Balaji Srinivasan and Amjad Masad

## Career timeline

- **2019-2020** — Completed master's in Computer Science (Systems and Machine Learning) at MIT after undergrad in CS and Physics
- **pre-2023** — Software Engineer at Yelp working on Core ML infrastructure and photo classification; earlier worked in Product and Growth at Rize Education and as an undergraduate researcher at MIT
- **2023** — Founded Warp; launched out of Y Combinator's Winter 2023 batch and raised an early round (~$5.5M); received an O-1 visa
- **2025-06** — Raised $18M Series A led by Sound Ventures, bringing total funding to roughly $24-25M; team grows to ~48-50 people in Flatiron, NYC

## Achievements

- Founded and leads Warp, an AI-native payroll and compliance platform serving 380+ companies
- Raised an $18M Series A in June 2025 led by Sound Ventures, with total funding of roughly $24-25M
- Backed by Y Combinator, HOF Capital, SV Angel, Homebrew Capital, A-Star and Abstract, plus angels Drew Houston, Arash Ferdowsi, Kyle Vogt, Balaji Srinivasan and Amjad Masad
- Built payroll coverage for W2 employees in all 50 US states and contractors in 150+ countries
- Reported 10x reduction in filing time, 80% reduction in error rates, and 90%+ cost savings vs legacy providers
- Recipient of an O-1 'extraordinary ability' visa

## Latest updates

- **2025-06** — Warp raised an $18M Series A led by Sound Ventures to scale its AI-driven payroll and compliance platform; total funding reaches roughly $24-25M.
- **2025** — Warp repositions as an 'AI-native employee management platform for high-growth companies,' expanding from payroll/compliance into broader HR automation.

## Links

- Website: https://joinwarp.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayushsharma01
- Twitter/X: https://x.com/ayushswrites
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Inj5u81QLg

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/ayush-sharma
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-04