About
A builder and investor with a clear point of view on where technology is going.
I'm Shilpi Nayak, a product and engineering leader, founder, and investor working at the intersection of AI, company creation, private markets, and community.
Over more than 15 years, my work has spanned large-scale systems at Google, Akamai, and Intel, healthcare operations at Sprinter Health, and leading product and engineering teams across venture-backed startups — experience that now shapes how I invest and build through 434 VC and House of 434.
Today I'm most focused on where company creation is going: how AI reshapes the way companies are built, how expertise is scaled, how ownership evolves, and how communities create opportunity long before institutions do. I also advise founders and teams on AI strategy and product.
- Building
- 434 VC · House of 434
- Advising
- AI strategy & product
- Education
- M.S. CS, UCLA
Formerly
Journey
Engineer → leader → founder → investor → community builder.
434 VC
2026 — Present
Founder & Managing Partner
Early-stage venture backing founders using AI to rebuild expert work in regulated professional services.
House of 434
2026 — Present
Founder
A private community and editorial platform around AI, ownership, and company-building.
Goodfin
2024 — 2026
Co-Founder & CTO
Built AI-native systems for alternative investing and financial decision-making, and co-led the launch of Goodfin Go.
Zania
2023
Founding Team
Early engineering on the AI security and compliance product. Zania later raised a Series A from NEA.
Sprinter Health
2021 — 2023
Engineering Leadership
Technology and operational systems for healthcare delivery and regulated workflows.
2017 — 2021
Search, User Modeling, Cloud, Collaboration
Large-scale ML systems, user modeling, enterprise cloud, and collaboration infrastructure.
Earlier
2012 — 2017
Engineering Roles
Engineering roles spanning internet-scale analytics at Akamai, manufacturing systems at Intel, and applied machine learning at Amazon.