# Penny Chen

> Penny Chen is the co-founder and CEO of Pax, the Y Combinator (S24) startup rebuilding duty drawback - the U.S. program that refunds import tariffs - as an AI-native brokerage. An MIT PhD and former research scientist at Amazon and Flexport, she stumbled on duty drawback while building supply-chain algorithms and saw a math problem hiding inside a bureaucratic one: each year roughly $10-15 billion in eligible refunds go unclaimed because legacy brokers take 10-20% and won't touch claims under $100k. Pax turns the rulebook into algorithms and LLM data extraction, promising a TurboTax-style experience that cuts filing from 9-12 months to a few weeks. The company raised $4.5M in seed funding led by Initialized Capital in April 2025.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Pax
- **Organizations:** Pax (Pax AI), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Amazon, Flexport, Y Combinator
- **Nationality:** Taiwanese
- **Education:** PhD, algorithm design / optimization, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Mechanical Engineering (background), National Taiwan University
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Pax, an AI-native duty drawback brokerage (YC S24), Raised $4.5M seed funding (April 2025) led by Initialized Capital, with Sancus, Basis Set, Soma Capital, General Catalyst, Transpose, ZVC1 and Flexport angels, Earned a PhD from MIT in optimization / algorithm design

## Career timeline

- **pre-2022** — Research at MIT on optimization and algorithm design across logistics and supply chain
- **2022** — Completed PhD at MIT
- **early career** — Research scientist at Flexport, where she first encountered duty drawback
- **career** — Research scientist at Amazon, building algorithms for pricing, forecasting, fulfillment, and capacity planning
- **2024** — Co-founded Pax with Chris Le; admitted to Y Combinator Summer 2024 (S24)
- **2024-08** — Public launch: 'Pax AI - TurboTax for Import Duty Rebate'
- **2025-04** — Raised $4.5M seed round led by Initialized Capital

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Pax, an AI-native duty drawback brokerage (YC S24)
- Raised $4.5M seed funding (April 2025) led by Initialized Capital, with Sancus, Basis Set, Soma Capital, General Catalyst, Transpose, ZVC1 and Flexport angels
- Earned a PhD from MIT in optimization / algorithm design
- Former research scientist at Amazon and Flexport
- Built ABI-certified software enabling direct claim submission to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
- Reported processing of roughly $10M in tariff refunds and tripled revenue following 2025 tariff escalation
- Cut typical duty drawback turnaround from 9-12 months to 3-6 weeks

## Latest updates

- **2025-04** — Pax raised $4.5M in seed funding led by Initialized Capital to expand its AI-powered duty drawback platform.
- **2025** — Reported tripling revenue amid escalating U.S. tariffs and growing demand for refund recovery.

## Links

- Website: https://paxai.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pennypinyichen/
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxyEYS5N3xA

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/penny-chen
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-21