Turned Finance Into the Technical Infrastructure Behind Chowbus's AI-Native Pivot
Chowbus is an AI-native restaurant technology platform serving independent restaurants across the US and Canada, with $209M raised and over $4 billion in annualised transaction volume. Fan joined as CFO, closed a substantial Series E within his first weeks, and immediately executed the company's third major strategic pivot: repositioning finance as technical infrastructure rather than a reporting layer.
He unified accounting, FP&A, payments, and business intelligence under a single organisation and built a semantic layer, one governed definition of every business metric, so dashboards, planning models, and AI tools all draw from consistent numbers. He restructured payments as a managed P&L, renegotiated processor economics to deliver basis-point margin expansion on billions in annual volume, and led the company into its first Big Four audit.
Fan built ChatBI on Claude, giving operators plain-language access to business data, and automated board deck production from the data warehouse, cutting preparation from two weeks to three days.
Finance is one of the most under-leveraged growth levers a startup has.
The best finance leaders don't just keep the books. They extend runway,
structure capital that changes what a company can do next, and build the
systems that let it scale across borders.
Startup Finance 30 is the first list built to recognise that work.
Beginning in 2026 and continuing annually, we name 30 finance leaders at
venture-backed, globally ambitious startups. The operators shaping how the
next generation of companies grow.
What Startup Finance 30 is
“
Who's doing the most consequential finance work in the startup world right now?
This list is the answer.
FAQ
More information on how SF30 works.
Who's behind Startup Finance 30?
Startup Finance 30 is published by Airwallex. We built it because we work with globally ambitious companies every day, and the finance leaders driving that growth deserve more recognition than they get. Selection sits with the committee.
Who selects the final 30?
A committee of operating CFOs and finance leaders. They score every candidate against a five-part merit rubric and ratify the final list. See the full
selection methodology.
Is there a fee? Can I pay to be included?
No. It's free to enter, and recognition is earned on merit.
