On May 20, Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle, announced that his new project, Catena Labs, has successfully completed a $18 million seed round of financing.
This round of financing was led by a16z Crypto, followed closely by Breyer Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and his former employer Circle Ventures, along with investment from football star Tom Brady.
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."
AI is also going to open a bank?
Catena Labs is a fintech startup that aims 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 that there is a person on one end of each transaction, which leads to delays like 3-day ACH transfers and high fees for credit card payments (up to 3%).
Currently, the traditional financial system is still in the "human serving human" stage, and the system automatically flags activities as fraud, forcing manual reviews. This slows down the pace of innovation and limits the actual capabilities of AI agents.
What Catena wants to do is "AI serving AI," allowing your AI assistant to directly help you open accounts, transfer money, manage finances, and even negotiate business with other AIs. Software agents should be able to pay and receive compensation instantly and securely.
Its focus is on AI + fintech, emphasizing AI-driven financial services and decentralized identity, a field currently being aggressively pursued by large capital.
From USDC to AI Bank, Circle Founder Takes a Second Shot
Catena Labs was founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle, 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 also co-founded Circle Internet Group, Inc., where he led the design and development of USDC. In April 2025, Circle submitted its IPO application, with a valuation of approximately $5 billion.
Neville left his operational role at Circle in early 2020 but remained a board member. After leaving Circle, he began to study AI and firmly believes that we are entering an AI-native internet era, which has become the foundational philosophy of 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 for direct resume submissions, indicating that the team is actively recruiting talent globally.
Catena Labs has developed an open-source protocol to make AI the "bank representative" for users. The company has explicitly stated that it will not issue cryptocurrencies or stablecoins, 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 person 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."
Neville predicts that future financial transactions will be executed entirely by AI agents. The project team also hopes that in the future, AI will not just chat or draw, but will truly be able to "make money, spend money, and manage finances," becoming independent economic participants.
Catena Labs has not yet issued tokens or launched products, 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 lack of compatibility with automation. ACK is their first step: using stablecoins for fast settlements and standardized protocols for identity verification, ultimately allowing AI to have its own "bank account" and "financial services," just like humans.
Currently, they have not announced specific product plans, only stating that they will open access to developers and businesses through APIs and other means in the future, building a new AI-driven financial ecosystem. Although still in development, based on 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, leveraging their successful experience at Circle and USDC, lead a lean team of just 9 people to complete a $18 million seed round of financing led by a16z.
Its AI-native vision, open-source protocol (ACK), and flexible integration of stablecoins demonstrate industry foresight. 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 rollout and the effectiveness of ecosystem building.
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