Shaia Erlbau

Co-Founder & CEO Merciv, Inc.

Shaia Erlbaum is Merciv’s co-founder and chief executive officer. He leads the company’s vision for agentic systems that provide brands with real-time insights into demand, sentiment, and cultural shifts. He describes the company’s ambition as building the “nervous system of global commerce,” where research happens continuously and seamlessly as consumer behavior shifts in real time. 
Shaia began his career at Universal Music Group on the label group’s central content and technology team, where he worked on projects spanning major recording artists and catalog acquisitions while partnering with UMG's CIO to modernize legacy systems. At UMG, he met Baptiste Leroux, who would later become his Merciv co-founder.
In 2021, Erlbaum and Leroux left UMG to found Merciv Studio, building AR and early agentic-AI experiences for enterprise brands. Their work included serving as an early red-teaming partner to OpenAI ahead of ChatGPT’s public launch. That work became the starting thesis for Merciv: that the consumer economy was moving faster than the research tools built to study it.
As CEO, Shaia leads Merciv’s product, customer, and organizational strategy, working directly with brand leaders to validate new capabilities while shaping the company’s long-term direction. 
Shaia attended New York University. He is based in New York City.