# Farbod Nowzad

> Farbod Nowzad is the co-founder and CEO of Cashmere, a Los Angeles fintech building an AI-powered data layer that helps financial institutions and wealth managers turn fragmented customer records into decision-ready intelligence. UC Berkeley's first data science graduate, he cut his teeth on anti-fraud machine learning at Lime and later founded the social audio startup Pludo before launching Cashmere in 2022 with high school friend and CTO Eshan Govil. In September 2024 the company raised a $3.6M seed round led by Canapi Ventures to attack a wealth industry sitting on a $90 trillion generational wealth transfer.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at Cashmere
- **Organizations:** Cashmere, Pludo, Aspen Standard Wealth (advisory board)
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.A. in Data Science (first data science graduate), UC Berkeley, Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton, California
- **Known for:** First data science graduate from UC Berkeley, Co-founded and leads Cashmere, used by top-10 US banks and top-25 global financial institutions including M&T Bank and Wilmington Trust, Raised $3.6M seed round led by Canapi Ventures (Sept 2024)

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Data scientist and software engineer at Lime (anti-fraud ML team), CloudKitchens, and Ripple
- **2022** — Founded Pludo, a social audio startup backed by General Catalyst, Canaan Partners, and Makers Fund
- **2022** — Co-founded Cashmere with Eshan Govil; became Co-Founder and CEO
- **2024-09** — Closed $3.6M seed round led by Canapi Ventures
- **2025** — Joined the advisory board of Aspen Standard Wealth

## Achievements

- First data science graduate from UC Berkeley
- Co-founded and leads Cashmere, used by top-10 US banks and top-25 global financial institutions including M&T Bank and Wilmington Trust
- Raised $3.6M seed round led by Canapi Ventures (Sept 2024)
- Founded venture-backed social audio startup Pludo (General Catalyst, Canaan Partners, Makers Fund)

## Latest updates

- **2024-09** — Cashmere announced a $3.6M seed round led by Canapi Ventures to scale its AI client acquisition platform.
- **2025-01** — Joined the advisory board of Aspen Standard Wealth.

## Links

- Website: https://cashmereai.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farbodnowzad/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/farbodnowzad

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/farbod-nowzad
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-24