On May 20, Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle, announced that his new project Catena Labs successfully completed a $18 million seed round funding.

This round of financing is led by a16z Crypto, followed closely by Breyer Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and the old employer Circle Ventures, with football star Tom Brady also participating.

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 businesses can rely on, and we are excited to support their vision.

Does AI also want 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, low-cost settlements, etc. 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 means delays such as 3-day ACH transfers and high fees for credit card payments (up to 3%).

All current traditional financial systems are still at the “human service human” stage, where the system marks automated activities as fraud, forcing manual review. 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, transfer funds, manage investments, and even negotiate business with other AIs. Software agents should be able to pay and receive compensation instantly and securely.

Its track is AI + fintech, focusing on AI-driven financial services and decentralized identity, a field that is currently being crazily pursued by large capital.

From USDC to AI Bank, Circle founder takes action again.

Catena Labs was founded by Circle co-founder Sean Neville, originally established in 2021 to explore AI and decentralized identity, and officially focused on building an “AI-native financial system” in 2023.

Neville was a former Adobe engineer and a co-founder of Circle Internet Group, Inc., leading the design and development of USDC. In April 2025, Circle submitted its IPO application, with a valuation of about 5 billion dollars.

Neville left his operational role at Circle in early 2020 but continued to serve as a member of the Circle board. After leaving Circle, he began to focus on AI and firmly believes that we are entering an AI-native internet era, which has also become the foundational philosophy of Catena Labs.

In 2021, Neville co-founded a technology laboratory 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, the Catena Labs team consists of 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 seeking talent from around the world.

Currently, Catena Labs has developed an open-source protocol that allows AI to serve as the user’s “bank representative.” The company has clearly stated that it will not issue any encryption currency or stablecoin for the time being, but investors will receive equity with accompanying token warrants.

Reinstall 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 pace, which is why Catena is so compelling.”

And 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 only chat and create art, but will truly be able to “make money, spend money, and manage finances,” becoming an independent economic entity participant.

Catena Labs has not issued a coin or launched a product yet, but they have just open-sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK), which is a financial protocol framework designed specifically for AI, focusing on two key concepts - identity verification for AI agents and automated payments.

What Catena Labs aims to solve is the various unfriendly aspects of traditional finance towards AI - slow payments, high costs, and lack of automation compatibility. ACK is the first step they have taken: using stablecoin for fast settlement 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 in the future they will open access to developers and enterprises through APIs and other means, building an AI-driven new financial ecosystem. Although it is still under development, judging 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, leveraging their successful experiences at Circle and USDC, lead a lean team of just 9 people and have secured $18 million in seed funding led by a16z.

Its AI-native vision, open-source protocol (ACK), and flexible integration of 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 its product implementation and the effectiveness of its ecosystem construction.

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