Shivum Pandove
| Shivum Pandove | |
| Occupation | CEO and co-founder of Janus |
|---|---|
| Known for | Founding Janus, an AI agent evaluation platform |
Shivum Pandove is an American entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Janus, a startup that provides automated evaluation infrastructure for testing and improving artificial intelligence agents using simulation environments. The company was founded in 2025 and is part of Y Combinator's X25 batch.[1]
Early life and education
Pandove studied in the Machine Learning program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He left the program before completing his degree to focus on building Janus full-time. Prior to founding Janus, Pandove had research experience in deep learning and computational biology, as well as experience in software engineering and product development at earlier startups.[2]
Career
Before starting Janus, Pandove turned down offers from technology and defense companies including IBM and Anduril to pursue entrepreneurship. He co-founded Janus in 2025 alongside Jet Wu, who was also a student in Carnegie Mellon's machine learning program. The company is based in San Francisco, California.[3]
Janus develops infrastructure designed to help enterprises evaluate AI agents — including chatbots, voice agents, browser-based tools, and autonomous workflows — before deployment. The platform automates the evaluation cycle through a multi-step process: it synthetically generates tasks for an AI agent, executes agent workflows in simulated environments, captures function calls and API interactions as structured traces, and then evaluates performance using proprietary verification models. The system produces structured insights on failures and root causes, enabling teams to identify issues and re-test iteratively. The company positions its product as a way to compress evaluation timelines from months to days, aiming to reduce failure rates in AI systems before they reach production.
Janus also offers evaluation and post-training datasets tailored to enterprise use cases, generated from its simulation infrastructure. For complex deployments, the company works directly with teams to calibrate key performance metrics, scoring rubrics, and test harnesses.
As of mid-2025, Janus had two employees and was participating in Y Combinator's X25 batch. Pandove describes himself as broadly interested in technological progress, human biology, and creating products that positively impact humanity.[4]
References
- ↑ "Janus: Evaluate AI Agents with Simulation Environments". 'Janus}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Shivum Pandove". 'Huge Magazine}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Janus: Evaluate AI Agents with Simulation Environments". 'Janus}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.
- ↑ "Janus: Evaluate AI Agents with Simulation Environments". 'Janus}'. Retrieved 2026-03-19.