He Song

He Song is CTO & Co-Founder at Payna | YC W26, a Y Combinator-backed company building an AI licensing agent for regulated industries. Payna automates the filings, renewals, amendments, and regulator follow-ups required to get licensed and stay licensed across jurisdictions, targeting sectors including financial services categories such as lending, debt collection, and money transmission. He Song co-founded the company in October 2025 alongside Aaron Chen and is currently operating in the CTO capacity out of San Francisco.

Prior to Payna, He Song co-founded Solace, an AI wellness companion, serving as CTO from April to September 2025. His background in blockchain is active and institutional: he serves as a Lecturer teaching CS 198 Fundamentals of Blockchain at UC Berkeley's EECS department, a position he has held since August 2025, and concurrently works as an Education Consultant at Blockchain at Berkeley, a student-run organization focused on blockchain education, research, and consulting. Earlier in his career, he worked as a Data Analyst at building-U, a nonprofit focused on postsecondary planning, from December 2022 to August 2024. According to Y Combinator's company profile, He Song founded and scaled a company to a $15 million valuation as a freshman, launched a token at a $60 million valuation, built a crypto lending product at Berkeley, and spent time inside multi-state licensing workflows before founding Payna to automate that process. He studied computer science at UC Berkeley.