On May 20, Circle co-founder Sean Neville announced that his new project Catena Labs successfully completed a $18 million seed round financing.
This round of financing was led by a16z Crypto, followed closely by Breyer Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and former employer Circle Ventures, with NFL star Tom Brady participating as well.
Chris Dixon, founder and managing partner of a16z crypto, said: 'Sean Neville and the Catena team have the expertise to tackle this challenge. They are building the financial infrastructure that agent commerce can rely on, and we are excited to support their vision.'
Does AI also need to open a bank?
Catena Labs is a fintech startup aiming to 'build an AI bank from scratch,' focusing on providing dedicated financial infrastructure for AI agents, such as smart payments, identity verification, and low-cost settlements. The company plans to establish the first fully regulated AI-native financial institution.
Traditional payment rails assume there is a person on one end of each transaction, leading to delays such as 3-day ACH transfers and high fees for credit card payments (up to 3%).
Currently, all traditional financial systems are still in the 'people serving people' stage, and systems will automatically flag activities as fraudulent, forcing manual reviews. This slows down the pace of innovation and limits the actual capabilities of AI agents.
What Catena aims to do is 'AI serving AI,' allowing your AI assistant to directly help you open accounts, make transfers, manage finances, and even negotiate business with other AIs. Software agents should be able to pay and receive compensation instantly and securely.
The track it is on is AI + fintech, focusing on AI-driven financial services and decentralized identity, a field currently being fervently pursued by large capital.
From USDC to AI bank, Circle founders take a second shot
Catena Labs was founded by Circle co-founder Sean Neville, initially established in 2021 to explore AI and decentralized identity, and officially focused in 2023 on building an 'AI-native financial system.'
Neville was an engineer at Adobe and co-founder of Circle Internet Group, Inc., leading the design and development of USDC. Circle submitted its IPO application in April 2025, with an estimated valuation of approximately $5 billion.
Neville left his operational role at Circle in early 2020 but continues to serve as a board member. After leaving Circle, he began to study AI and firmly believes we are entering an AI-native internet era, which has also become the philosophical basis for Catena Labs.
In 2021, Neville co-founded a technology lab with Matt Venables (co-founder and CTO of Catena Labs) to explore emerging technologies such as AI and decentralized identity, which is the origin of Catena Labs.
Currently, Catena Labs has only 9 members, all from world-class teams at Meta, Google, Jump Crypto, and Protocol Labs. Their official website allows direct resume submissions, indicating that the team is actively recruiting talent from around the world.
Currently, Catena Labs has developed an open-source protocol that allows AI to act as users' 'bank representatives.' The company has clearly stated that it will not issue cryptocurrencies or stablecoins for the time being, but investors will receive equity with attached token warrants.
Rebuilding the financial system with AI
Jim Breyer, founder and CEO of Breyer Capital, said, 'Neville is the only one qualified to lead the creation of the first AI-native bank. Integrating AI into business requires rebuilding financial infrastructure. Legacy systems do not always keep up, which is why Catena is so compelling.'
Furthermore, Neville predicts that future financial transactions will be entirely executed by AI agents. The project team also hopes that in the future, AI will not only be for chatting or drawing, but will truly be able to 'make money, spend money, and manage finances,' becoming independent economic participants.
Catena Labs has not issued tokens or launched products yet, but they have just open-sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK), a financial protocol framework designed specifically for AI, focusing on two key aspects—identity verification and automated payments for AI agents.
What Catena Labs aims to solve is the various unfriendliness of traditional finance towards AI—slow payments, high costs, and poor compatibility with automation. ACK is the first step they have taken: using stablecoins for fast settlements and standardized protocols for identity verification, ultimately allowing AI to have its own 'bank account' and 'financial services' like humans.
Currently, they have not announced specific product plans, only stating that they will open access to developers and enterprises through APIs and other means in the future, building a new AI-driven financial ecosystem. Although it is still under development, from the direction of the ACK framework, their goal is to rewrite the underlying logic of the entire financial system with AI.
Summary
Catena Labs is a highly promising early-stage project, situated at the intersection of AI and fintech. Founders Sean Neville and Matt Venables, with their successful experience at Circle and USDC, lead a lean team of only 9 people, having completed a $18 million seed round led by a16z.
Its AI-native vision, open-source protocol (ACK), and flexible integration with stablecoins demonstrate foresight in the industry. Although specific products have not yet been launched, its strong financing background and industry support give it significant competitiveness in the AI-driven financial sector.
In the future, the development of Catena Labs will depend on the speed of product launches and the effectiveness of building its ecosystem.
