GrailPay is a company that provides a payments infrastructure platform that enables fintechs, merchant-service payment providers, and financial institutions fully white-label and de-risked bank payments. Pulse 2.0 interviewed GrailPay co-founder and CEO Will Messina to gain a deeper understanding of the company.
Will Messina’s Background
Could you tell me more about your background? Messina said:
“I started GrailPay while still in college. I’ve always been drawn to the plumbing of financial systems — how money moves, where risk hides, and why certain infrastructure just hasn’t caught up.”
Responsibilities at the company: “I’m the Co-Founder & CEO. My focus is on product vision, fundraising, and securing key customer partnerships. I stay close to engineering and risk — it’s where we differentiate.”
Formation Of The Company
How did the idea for the company come together? Messina shared:
“We originally set out to build something completely different — a B2C payments experience — but we quickly realized the real opportunity was deeper in the stack. The biggest pain wasn’t front-end experience, it was the underlying risk and infrastructure powering ACH and account-based payments. That insight led to what GrailPay is now: a risk and data layer for instant bank payments.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Messina reflected:
“Launching our risk engine and seeing it outperform legacy systems on live customer data. It was one of those rare moments where years of building, theorizing, and refining paid off — and we got to watch it make a real impact in production. That’s when we knew we were onto something much bigger.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Messina explained:
“GrailPay offers bank payment infrastructure that de-risks and accelerates bank payments. Our core stack includes:
- Account Intelligence: real-time bank account data enrichment and validation, ownership verification, and predictive return risk.
- Money Movement: ACH and faster payments orchestration with fully automated payment flows, return codes, debits, credits, and settlement timing.
- Fraud and underwriting layer: built specifically for platforms processing bank payments at scale.”
Challenges Faced
Have you faced any challenges in your sector recently? Messina acknowledged:
“Bank payments are deeply fragmented. Return codes, fraud data, and compliance requirements differ wildly across banks. We’ve had to build proprietary risk models and partnerships to make that manageable — there’s no shortcut there. The other challenge is education: ACH isn’t real-time, and RTP is misunderstood. We spend a lot of time helping customers navigate that shift.”
Evolution Of The Company’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Messina noted:
“We’ve gone from basic ACH orchestration and enablement to full-stack infrastructure that platforms rely on to make bank payments a core part of their product. We’ve layered in custom, dynamic risk modeling and instant decisioning logic for ACH debits and faster payments. It’s night and day.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Messina cited:
- Powering over 10,000 businesses through our partners.
- Landing partners that trust us with a core part of their infrastructure.
- Closing our fundraise.
- Building a world-class team that is motivated every day by the vision.
Customer Success Stories
Can you share any specific customer success stories? Messina highlighted:
“A B2B payments platform processing high transaction volumes was struggling with fraud-related ACH losses and delayed account verification with microdeposits. After integrating GrailPay, they were able to pre-screen bank accounts in real-time, flag risky accounts before debits were attempted, and reduce fraud losses significantly. It also allowed them to onboard new users instantly — cutting their KYC/KYB delays from hours/days to seconds.”
Funding/Revenue
Are you able to discuss funding and/or revenue metrics? Messina revealed:
“We’ve raised $6.7M from top-tier fintech investors, and we’re scaling our revenue meaningfully this year. Most of our growth has come from infrastructure partnerships, which creates strong long-term retention and expansion.”
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Messina assessed:
“We’re targeting the bank payment layer that sits under trillions in annual transaction volume. ACH alone moves over $86T a year in the U.S., and as open banking and real-time payments mature, that TAM grows even further.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Messina affirmed:
“GrailPay isn’t just another pay-by-bank API. We focus on risk and intelligence first. Our platform is built for platforms — ones that care about underwriting, fraud, and handling real exposure. That lens changes everything, from how we score accounts to how we settle funds.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future goals? Messina emphasized:
- Become the default risk engine for instant bank payments.
- Expand instant payments adoption.
- Grow deeper into legacy industries like lending and healthcare, where risk tolerance is low but margins matter, and lead the way into de-risked DeFi.
- Keep the team lean, sharp, and execution-focused.
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you’d like to discuss? Messina concluded:
“Payments are commoditizing, but risk isn’t. We think the next breakout companies in this space won’t be the ones with the flashiest UX — they’ll be the ones that quietly eliminate risk at the infrastructure level. That’s what we’re building.”
