Midship, an AI-native platform focused on automating Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) testing and internal audit workflows, has raised $4.15 million in seed funding as it looks to modernize one of the most time-intensive parts of public-company compliance. The round was led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Seguin Ventures and additional angel investors.
The company said it will use the new capital to scale its team and accelerate adoption among public companies grappling with rising audit complexity, persistent talent shortages, and growing compliance budgets.
SOX testing remains a heavily manual process across much of the market, even after years of software adoption inside audit and compliance organizations. Midship points to the scale of the burden as a key driver of demand: the average U.S. public company spends roughly $2.3 million annually on SOX audit services, while internal finance, IT, and operations teams shoulder additional “hidden” costs that can be an order of magnitude higher. That reality can leave internal audit functions spending significant time on repetitive evidence gathering, control testing, and documentation, rather than advisory work tied to risk reduction and process improvement.
Midship positions its platform as an automation layer that executes the SOX testing lifecycle end to end, while keeping auditors in the loop. The company’s agents follow audit plans, review complex enterprise documentation, perform control testing, and produce audit-ready work papers with a complete evidence trail. Midship argues that this approach can reduce friction and manual effort while maintaining rigor and accountability.
The company was founded by Kieran Taylor (CEO), Aahel Iyer (CPO), and Max Maio (CTO), who say they developed their perspective by working alongside audit and compliance teams at organizations including Instacart, Deloitte, Amazon, Lyft, Faire, and PayPal. The trio later worked together at Dashworks, which was acquired by HubSpot, and traces Midship’s origin to the operational reality of first-year SOX compliance. While preparing Instacart for its IPO, the founders participated in an internal AI hackathon that helped crystallize the opportunity to automate SOX testing at the program level rather than chip away at individual tasks.
Midship is also drawing a line between its approach and legacy platforms that primarily manage workflows. The company says systems of record like AuditBoard and Workiva help administer SOX programs, but do not automate the testing itself. It also distinguishes its approach from deterministic automation by emphasizing agentic systems’ ability to handle the variability and unstructured enterprise data typical of audit work.
The platform is already in use at public companies, including what Midship described as a top social media platform and major fintechs, as internal audit teams look to scale impact without adding headcount. Costanoa, which focuses on early-stage investments across areas including Applied AI, AI Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, National Security, and Fintech, said it manages $2.3 billion in assets under management and aims to provide deeper operational support during formative growth stages.
KEY QUOTES
“SOX was meant to address core risk, not bog audit teams down with busy work. Teams spend months proving controls work instead of improving how the business runs. Midship flips that equation by letting AI handle the execution, evidence, and documentation, so humans can focus on judgment and real risk.”
Kieran Taylor, CEO and Co-Founder, Midship
“While most ‘AI for audit’ tools focus on replacing individual tasks. Midship goes further by enabling agents to execute end-to-end testing across entire audit programs. This lets teams keep controls in their native audit language and allows the agents to determine the steps needed to complete the work.”
Amy Cheetham, Partner, Costanoa
