Decoding AI
Builders x AI
Season
1
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Episode
3
Auquan: Building Agentic AI for Institutional Finance
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Financial institutions run on information, yet most of that information sits in unstructured text that teams spend hours parsing, validating, and transforming into decisions. It’s one of the largest hidden inefficiencies in global finance, and one of the biggest opportunities for applied AI. As regulation expands, data workloads rise, and accuracy expectations stay non-negotiable, the industry is reaching a point where human-only processes can’t keep up.
Auquan sits at the center of this shift. What began with a deep dive into ESG and regulatory workflows has grown into an agentic platform that helps institutions interpret complex documents, standardise insights, and operate with the level of precision the sector demands. In this episode, Co-founder and CTO Shub breaks down how Auquan is rethinking unstructured data for finance: the early insight that unlocked their first breakthrough vertical, why accuracy and trust became their north star, and how agentic AI can transform the daily desk-level workflows inside large firms.
Shub also shares the reality of building AI for conservative buyers: why demonstrating value matters more than showcasing technology, how credibility is earned one proof-of-value at a time, and why “always be building trust” became a mantra inside the company. It’s a grounded blueprint for founders building in regulated sectors, and a rare inside look at how AI can transform one of the world’s most risk-averse industries.
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We’re building Passionfroot 1, an operating system for creators to manage their business.
We’re based in Europe and raised our $ 3.4m pre-seed round from Creandum and US angels such as Vlad (Webflow) and creators like Ali Abdaal.As we’re creating a new category and as the creator economy is global and mostly online, we’re building from Day 1 a global company and product that helps creators monetize around the world.
This brings a lot of complexities especially in terms of payments and taxes as our early users are based both in Europe and the US and deal with cross-border transactions.What are Do’s and Dont’s for European startups who have a global ambition and build products for a global customer base from Day 1. Anything you would do differently?
Thanks @pjbouten! Love how you’ve thought about incrementally shaping a category with a focus on product and service, and only then thinking about getting the message out there vs the other way around.
And totally agree on the distinctions and overlaps both self-serve and enterprise motions share.
Thanks, PJ, for taking the time to address questions from the great vantage of shaping Showpad into a global, enterprise SaaS brand!