Tanguy Chau

Tanguy Chau is co-founder and CEO of Paxton, a Bend, Oregon, company whose AI assistant researches law, drafts documents and reviews files for law firms and in-house legal teams. He is a chemical engineer and former venture capitalist who grew up in Belgium.

Growing Up in Belgium

The son of a French mother who worked as a dentist and a Vietnamese father who had been a war refugee, he grew up in the French-speaking part of Belgium, according to a 2005 UC Berkeley profile. As a boy he found a chemistry kit in the attic, and in 1999 he became Belgian National Laureate in chemistry before representing Belgium at the International Chemistry Olympiad. He also sailed for Belgium's national sailing team.

Learning English at De Anza College

He moved to California in 2000 at 17, fluent in French and Dutch but not English, and failed the English test he needed to apply to UC Berkeley. He enrolled at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, learned English through math and chemistry classes, and transferred to Berkeley two years later. He graduated in December 2004 with a chemical engineering degree, a 4.0 grade point average, and a place among the five finalists for the University Medal, the school's top honor for a graduating senior.

Graduate School at MIT

He went on to earn a PhD and a master's degree in chemical engineering and an MBA at MIT, where he was elected to the MIT Corporation, the university's board of trustees, according to Kauffman Fellows.

Years in Venture Capital

He founded Sample6 Technologies, a synthetic biology company working on food safety, and worked at McKinsey & Company and the growth equity firm Angeleno Group. He then spent seven years as a venture investor at Formation 8 and Mayfield Fund, and served as chief compliance officer of an investment advisory firm regulated by FINRA and the SEC, according to Paxton.

Co-founding Paxton

He started Paxton with Michael Ulin, previously the founding engineer and VP of AI at ZestyAI, and the pair first showed Paxton to users in July 2023. "Our mission is to make advanced legal tools accessible to firms of all sizes," Chau said in a later company announcement, which reported that its monthly recurring revenue had grown 14 times in nine months.