Hirsh Pithadia

Hirsh Pithadia is co-founder and CEO of Valyu, a company in London, England, that sells a search and research API to AI teams. Valyu covers the web along with specialist sources such as SEC filings, academic papers, and clinical trial records.

Cryptography and data

Pithadia holds a doctorate and has a background in applied cryptography, blockchains, and federated learning. He has worked with large banks, regulators, and smaller companies on privacy-preserving data systems and tokenization, according to his City & Financial Global speaker profile. Valyu's earlier product was a platform for people and companies to value and license their data.

Grounding over stuffing

Pithadia talks often about where AI systems get their information. On Encord's AI Data Chats he argued for moving away from what he calls “context stuffing,” the approach most retrieval systems take, toward better data infrastructure and curated sources that ground an answer. He has also spoken about how publishers and creators can be paid when AI systems use their work, on the Venturing with Vishesh podcast.