TLDR: Fintech startup Natural has emerged from stealth with $9.8 million in seed funding to develop payment infrastructure specifically designed for autonomous AI agents. The company aims to address the limitations of traditional human-centric payment systems in an increasingly agent-driven economy, enabling seamless, low-latency financial interactions between AI agents, businesses, and consumers.
SAN FRANCISCO – Natural, a pioneering fintech company, has officially launched from stealth, announcing a successful $9.8 million seed funding round. This significant investment is earmarked for building the foundational payment infrastructure necessary for an ‘agentic future,’ where artificial intelligence agents will autonomously manage financial transactions on behalf of individuals and businesses.
The funding round was co-led by Abstract and Human Capital, with additional participation from prominent investors including Forerunner Ventures, Terrain, Restive Ventures, and Genius Ventures. A notable coalition of tech founders and operators also contributed, featuring names like Zach Abrams (CEO, Bridge), Immad Akhund (CEO, Mercury), Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh (CEO & CTO, Ramp), Guillermo Rauch (CEO, Vercel), Itai Damti (CEO, Unit), and Matt Michaelis (CEO, Emprise Bank).
Natural’s core mission is to revolutionize payment systems, which were historically designed for human-to-human interaction, relying on manual workflows, account numbers, and traditional interfaces. As AI agents are projected to handle a growing majority of global transaction volumes, there is a critical need for a new financial infrastructure capable of supporting high-speed, agent-to-agent interactions and decision-making through low-latency execution.
Kahlil Lalji, CEO of Natural, emphasized the current void in the market, stating, “Today’s agents lack the fundamental infrastructure necessary to financially engage with the broader world. We need infrastructure allowing them to act securely and effectively. We’re here to fix that.” The company is initially focusing on embedded B2B use cases, with ambitions to expand its capabilities to power all forms of financial interactions in the future.
Ramtin Naimi, Founder of Abstract, highlighted the urgency and impact of Natural’s solution: “AI is moving from demos to production, and a major bottleneck is money that moves at the speed of compute. Natural solves the missing link for AI workflows to be truly end-to-end by rebuilding the stack for developers and agents across identity, authorization, and low-latency settlement.”
Also Read:
- Paygentic Secures $2 Million Pre-Seed Funding to Revolutionize Billing for AI-Native Products
- Anchor Browser Secures $6 Million Seed Funding to Advance AI-Powered Web Automation
Unlike existing consumer payment rails, Natural’s platform is engineered to accommodate the intricate workflows and approval processes inherent in autonomous payments. This empowers companies to deploy AI agents that can independently make decisions and finalize transactions, marking a significant step towards a truly autonomous financial ecosystem.
