# Rhim Shah

> Rhim Shah is the co-founder and CEO of Arva AI, a Y Combinator and Google AI Fund-backed startup building auditable AI agents that automate financial crime compliance reviews for banks and fintechs. An Oxford engineering graduate who led the FinCrime product team at Revolut Business, he spent hundreds of hours shadowing compliance analysts before deciding the mundane, repetitive work of AML, KYB and KYC could be done faster and deeper by AI. Arva now automates as much as 80-92% of manual review work and counts leading UK and US banks among its customers.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Arva AI
- **Organizations:** Arva AI, Revolut, Jobandtalent, Google, Carbon Codes, Y Combinator
- **Nationality:** British (British-Pakistani)
- **Education:** Engineering, University of Oxford
- **Known for:** Co-founded and leads Arva AI, backed by Y Combinator and Google's Gradient Ventures, Raised roughly $3M in seed funding (about $3.13M total), Built AI agents automating 80-92% of manual financial crime compliance reviews

## Career timeline

- **Oxford years** — Founded Carbon Codes, a sustainable food marketplace for students; later exited to a competitor. Self-published university entrance-exam study guides.
- **Early career** — Associate Product Manager (APM) intern at Google.
- **Pre-Revolut** — Led multiple product teams at Jobandtalent.
- **Revolut Business** — Led the financial crime (FinCrime) product team, overseeing tooling for analysts running tens of thousands of daily compliance reviews.
- **2024** — Co-founded Arva AI with Oli Wales; joined Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch.
- **2025** — Raised a $3M seed round led by Google's Gradient Ventures; scaled to leading UK and US bank customers; Arva featured on a New York Times Square billboard.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and leads Arva AI, backed by Y Combinator and Google's Gradient Ventures
- Raised roughly $3M in seed funding (about $3.13M total)
- Built AI agents automating 80-92% of manual financial crime compliance reviews
- Signed leading banks and fintechs in the UK and US as customers
- Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist (CAMS)
- Earlier exit: sold student food marketplace Carbon Codes while at Oxford
- Arva AI featured on a New York Times Square billboard

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Closed a seed round (about $3M) with backing from Google's Gradient Ventures.
- **2024** — Co-founded Arva AI and went through Y Combinator's Summer 2024 batch.

## Links

- Website: https://arva.ai
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhim-shah/

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