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

The round was led by a16z Crypto, with Breyer Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and former employer Circle Ventures following closely behind, as well as a strategic investment from NFL 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 can be relied upon by proxy commerce, and we are excited to support their vision."

AI is Also Opening 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 intelligent 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 human at one end of each transaction, which means delays like three-day ACH transfers and high fees for credit card payments (up to 3%). The current traditional financial system is still in the "people serving people" stage, and it still flags automated activities as fraud, forcing manual reviews. This slows down innovation and limits the practical functions of AI agents.

What Catena wants to do is "AI serving AI," allowing your AI assistant to directly open accounts, transfer money, manage finances, and even conduct business with other AIs on your behalf. Software agents should be able to pay and get paid instantly and securely.

Its focus is on the AI + fintech track, with an emphasis on AI-driven financial services and decentralized identities, a field currently being aggressively pursued by big capital.

From USDC to an AI Bank: Circle's Founder Strikes Again

Catena Labs was founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle, initially established in 2021 to explore AI and decentralized identities. In 2023, it officially focused on building an "AI-native financial system."

Neville was formerly an engineer at Adobe and co-founder of Circle Internet Group, Inc., where he led the design and development of USDC. In April 2025, Circle filed for an IPO with a valuation of approximately $5 billion.

Neville left his operational role at Circle in early 2020 but remained on the board of directors. After leaving Circle, he began to focus on AI, firmly believing that we are entering an AI-native internet era, which became the foundational concept of Catena Labs.

In 2021, Neville co-founded a technology experiment studio with Matt Venables (co-founder and CTO of Catena Labs) to explore emerging technologies like AI and decentralized identities, which eventually gave rise to Catena Labs.

Currently, Catena Labs has only nine members, all from world-class teams at Meta, Google, Jump Crypto, and Protocol Labs. The team is actively recruiting globally, as evidenced by the resume submission option on their official website.

Catena Labs Has Developed an Open-Source Protocol to Make AI the "Bank Representative" for Users

Catena Labs has developed an open-source protocol to allow AI to act as a "bank representative" for users. The company has made it clear that it will not issue cryptocurrencies or stablecoins for now, but investors will receive equity with attached token warrants.

Reinstalling 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 commerce requires rebuilding the financial infrastructure. Legacy systems don't always keep up, which is why Catena is so compelling."

Neville predicts that future financial transactions will be entirely executed by AI agents. The project also hopes that AI will not just be used for chatting or drawing but will truly be able to "earn, spend, and manage money," becoming an independent participant in the economy.

Catena Labs Has Open-Sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK)

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 specifically designed for AI, focusing on two key aspects—identity verification for AI agents and automated payments.

What Catena Labs aims to solve is the various unfriendliness of traditional finance towards AI—slow payments, high costs, and poor adaptation to 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 accounts" and "financial services" like humans.

Currently, they have not disclosed specific product plans, only mentioning that they will open up to developers and enterprises via APIs in the future to build a new AI-driven financial ecosystem. Although still in development, the direction of the ACK framework indicates that their goal is to rewrite the underlying logic of the entire financial system with AI.

Summary

Catena Labs is a highly potential early-stage project at the intersection of AI and fintech. With the successful completion of an $18 million seed funding round led by a16z, the team of nine members led by founders Sean Neville and Matt Venables, who have experience with Circle and USDC, has demonstrated industry foresight with their AI-native vision, open-source protocol (ACK), and flexible integration of stablecoins.

Despite the lack of specific product launches, its strong funding background and industry support give it significant competitiveness in the AI-driven finance field. The future development of Catena Labs will depend on the speed of product implementation and the effectiveness of its ecosystem construction.

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

The round was led by a16z Crypto, with Breyer Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and former employer Circle Ventures following closely behind, as well as a strategic investment from NFL 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 can be relied upon by proxy commerce, and we are excited to support their vision."

AI is Also Opening 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 intelligent 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 human at one end of each transaction, which means delays like three-day ACH transfers and high fees for credit card payments (up to 3%). The current traditional financial system is still in the "people serving people" stage, and it still flags automated activities as fraud, forcing manual reviews. This slows down innovation and limits the practical functions of AI agents.

What Catena wants to do is "AI serving AI," allowing your AI assistant to directly open accounts, transfer money, manage finances, and even conduct business with other AIs on your behalf. Software agents should be able to pay and get paid instantly and securely.

Its focus is on the AI + fintech track, with an emphasis on AI-driven financial services and decentralized identities, a field currently being aggressively pursued by big capital.

From USDC to an AI Bank: Circle's Founder Strikes Again

Catena Labs was founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of Circle, initially established in 2021 to explore AI and decentralized identities. In 2023, it officially focused on building an "AI-native financial system."

Neville was formerly an engineer at Adobe and co-founder of Circle Internet Group, Inc., where he led the design and development of USDC. In April 2025, Circle filed for an IPO with a valuation of approximately $5 billion.

Neville left his operational role at Circle in early 2020 but remained on the board of directors. After leaving Circle, he began to focus on AI, firmly believing that we are entering an AI-native internet era, which became the foundational concept of Catena Labs.

In 2021, Neville co-founded a technology experiment studio with Matt Venables (co-founder and CTO of Catena Labs) to explore emerging technologies like AI and decentralized identities, which eventually gave rise to Catena Labs.

Currently, Catena Labs has only nine members, all from world-class teams at Meta, Google, Jump Crypto, and Protocol Labs. The team is actively recruiting globally, as evidenced by the resume submission option on their official website.

Catena Labs Has Developed an Open-Source Protocol to Make AI the "Bank Representative" for Users

Catena Labs has developed an open-source protocol to allow AI to act as a "bank representative" for users. The company has made it clear that it will not issue cryptocurrencies or stablecoins for now, but investors will receive equity with attached token warrants.

Reinstalling 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 commerce requires rebuilding the financial infrastructure. Legacy systems don't always keep up, which is why Catena is so compelling."

Neville predicts that future financial transactions will be entirely executed by AI agents. The project also hopes that AI will not just be used for chatting or drawing but will truly be able to "earn, spend, and manage money," becoming an independent participant in the economy.

Catena Labs Has Open-Sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK)

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 specifically designed for AI, focusing on two key aspects—identity verification for AI agents and automated payments.

What Catena Labs aims to solve is the various unfriendliness of traditional finance towards AI—slow payments, high costs, and poor adaptation to 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 accounts" and "financial services" like humans.

Currently, they have not disclosed specific product plans, only mentioning that they will open up to developers and enterprises via APIs in the future to build a new AI-driven financial ecosystem. Although still in development, the direction of the ACK framework indicates that their goal is to rewrite the underlying logic of the entire financial system with AI.

Summary

Catena Labs is a highly potential early-stage project at the intersection of AI and fintech. With the successful completion of an $18 million seed funding round led by a16z, the team of nine members led by founders Sean Neville and Matt Venables, who have experience with Circle and USDC, has demonstrated industry foresight with their AI-native vision, open-source protocol (ACK), and flexible integration of stablecoins.

Despite the lack of specific product launches, its strong funding background and industry support give it significant competitiveness in the AI-driven finance field. The future development of Catena Labs will depend on the speed of product implementation and the effectiveness of its ecosystem construction.