Recently, the artificial intelligence startup Catena Labs announced in a press release that they successfully raised $18 million in funding with the aim of building the world's first regulatory-compliant AI-native financial institution to support the development of the "agent economy." The company was co-founded by former Circle Co-CEO Sean Neville, who also played a key role in creating the USDC stablecoin.
This funding round was led by renowned venture capital firm a16z Crypto, with participation from investment institutions such as Breyer Capital, Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, CoinFund, Pillar VC, and Stanford Engineering Risk Fund, as well as notable angel investors including Tom Brady, NFL athlete, Kevin Lin, co-founder of Twitch, and Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM.
Catena Labs is dedicated to building a new financial institution specifically for AI agents. These AI agents are software programs capable of conducting transactions, making decisions, and interacting autonomously with humans and businesses. Neville stated, "AI agents will soon take on most economic transactions, but the current financial system is not yet prepared to interact effectively with autonomous intelligence." Therefore, Catena Labs' goal is to build a financial institution that enables safe and efficient transactions between AI agents and the enterprises and consumers they serve.
In contrast to traditional banks, AI-native financial institutions are designed to support the workflows, identities, and transactions of AI systems. AI agents can autonomously complete activities like purchasing and receiving payments, which often exceed the capabilities of traditional financial institutions. Matt Venables, CTO of Catena, noted that the existing financial infrastructure creates significant friction for AI agents. Traditional payment systems are slow, fragile, and expensive, limiting the potential of AI commerce.
To help developers and enterprises better integrate intelligent financial services, Catena also launched the "Agent Commerce Toolkit," an open-source suite of protocols and patterns covering agent identity, payments, receipts, and human oversight. Catena plans to provide regulated financial services, including payment channels based on stablecoins, for near-instant settlement and low fees. These services are designed to accelerate machine-speed transactions and address emerging challenges in fraud prevention, identity verification, and compliance.
Chris Dixon, founder and general partner of a16z Crypto, said: "The rise of AI agents is reshaping the possibilities of online commerce, indicating our urgent need to build a financial layer specifically for these systems."