Denki and Y Combinator: $4.1M to Reinvent Financial Auditing

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Key Takeaways

1Denki, founded by two young brothers, has raised $4.1 million to automate financial audits with AI.

2The startup, based in San Francisco, aims to replace manual processes with a modern, automated infrastructure.

3Y Combinator and other investors supported this fundraising, reflecting the rise of fintechs in 2025.

💡Why it matters — Denki could transform financial compliance by making audits more efficient and less costly.

Denki Raises Funds to Transform Financial Audits

Denki, an innovative startup in the financial technology sector, recently announced that it has raised $4.1 million. This funding, revealed exclusively to Crunchbase News, aims to support the development of their AI-powered financial audit software. Founded by brothers Felipe and David Jin Li, this young company focuses on modernizing financial audits for public companies.

Established in 2025, Denki is based in San Francisco and strives to replace traditional, often manual and tedious methods with automated solutions. The goal is to make audits as simple and efficient as computer code. According to Felipe Jin Li, CEO of Denki, their technology allows auditors to work faster and more accurately, while reducing costs and increasing risk coverage.

Strategic Financial Support

Denki's funding round was co-led by Base10 Partners and Shine Capital, with notable participation from Y Combinator, 20VC, and other investors. Denki has also been selected to participate in Y Combinator's Fall 2025 cohort, a prestigious startup accelerator.

This capital injection comes amid a rapid growth in funding for fintech startups, particularly those integrating AI into their services. In 2025, global investments in venture capital-backed fintechs reached $52.9 billion, marking a 27% increase from the previous year.

Y Combinator has distinguished itself as the most active investor in this sector, with 151 transactions in 2025, an increase of 24.8% compared to 2024.

A Promising Entrepreneurial Journey

The Jin Li brothers grew up between Spain and the UK. Their passion for technology led them to London, where they studied computer science and participated in various hackathons organized by giants like Meta and OpenAI. These competitions opened doors for them, including a pre-seed offer of $135,000 that they ultimately declined.

However, they accepted funding from a former DeepMind researcher, which allowed them to focus on developing their idea. Their participation in Y Combinator was a turning point, helping them concentrate on the field of financial auditing, a sector rich in unstructured data and regulatory challenges.

David Jin Li, with his experience at Macro Hive, and Felipe, who is pursuing a PhD in explainable AI, combined their skills to create a solution that goes beyond the simple Excel extensions used by auditors.

An Innovative Approach to Audit Challenges

Denki offers an alternative to traditional methods by providing clearer audit logs that are less susceptible to manipulation. The startup remains vigilant against new threats, particularly AI-related fraud. According to Felipe, one of the major current risks is the forgery of receipts generated by AI, and Denki is working to make these findings usable by auditors.

Denki's business model is based on annual SaaS contracts, adjusted according to the number of automated checks and the size of their clients' teams, which include pre-IPO and publicly traded companies.

Addressing the Needs of a Pressured Industry

The founders of Denki are convinced that their solution arrives at a critical time. Indeed, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board has recently imposed record penalties, highlighting the increasing pressure on companies to comply with financial standards. Denki hopes to alleviate this pressure by making audits more efficient and cost-effective.