Natural has raised $30 million in Series A funding to develop payments infrastructure designed specifically for artificial intelligence agents. Kirsten Green of Forerunner led the round, with continued participation from the company’s major existing investors. Investors and supporters in the round included the founders or executives of Human Capital, Abstract, Wischoff Ventures, Increase, HappyRobot, Browserbase, Notion, Privy, Y Combinator, Profound and Brex. Antifund general partners Jake Paul and Logan Paul also participated, along with other investors.
The financing brings Natural’s total funding to more than $40 million. The company said the Series A was raised when it was 193 days old, reflecting the rapid pace at which it is developing and commercializing its platform.
Natural is building a financial technology stack for AI agents that can independently perform economic activities. The company expects agents to increasingly hold and transfer money, make purchases, pay invoices, collect payments and charge customers for completed work.
These transactions may need to move across multiple banks, currencies, card networks and payment systems. Natural is developing the underlying accounts, ledgers, compliance controls and money-movement infrastructure required to support those activities.
Six of Natural’s 13 planned products have reached general availability. These offerings include Wallets, Vaults, Pay, Request, Transfer and Connect.
Wallets provides accounts through which AI agents can hold and manage funds. Natural is a financial technology company rather than a bank, with Wallet Account and banking services provided by Column N.A., a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation member institution.
Deposits may qualify for pass-through FDIC insurance through Column and participating sweep-program banks when applicable conditions are satisfied. FDIC insurance covers the failure of an insured banking institution rather than the failure of Natural itself.
Vaults provides one-way accounts that allow agents to move money into an account but not withdraw it. This structure could help organizations limit how autonomous systems access or use designated funds.
Pay enables customers to send money to an AI agent, business or consumer, while Request allows them to collect payments from those parties. Transfer supports the movement of funds between Natural accounts and external financial accounts.
Connect enables companies to build platforms and marketplaces using Natural’s payments infrastructure. The product is intended for businesses that need to facilitate financial interactions among multiple agents, users or service providers.
Natural plans to introduce Voice, Accept and Cards over the coming months. Voice will allow agents to collect Payment Card Industry-regulated information, including card details, during telephone interactions.
Accept will enable companies to configure AI agents as merchants capable of receiving payments. Cards will allow businesses to issue debit and charge cards that agents can use within predetermined operating and spending rules.
Natural expects to launch Charge, Credit, Direct and Billing during the fourth quarter. Charge will support billing for each application programming interface call made through Natural wallets, creating a way for agents and software services to charge based on usage.
Credit will enable companies to issue lines of credit for agents. Direct will allow agents to select and access specific payment rails while executing a transaction, while Billing will support compensation based on whether an agent successfully completes an assigned task or produces an agreed outcome.
Natural said it is directly developing important elements of its infrastructure rather than relying entirely on third-party systems. These capabilities include ledger management, money movement, multi-bank settlement, multiple currencies, fraud prevention, compliance, agent identity and transaction observability.
Identity and observability will be important as companies seek to determine which agent initiated a transaction, which user or business authorized it and how funds moved through a workflow. These controls could help organizations investigate errors, enforce spending policies and meet financial compliance requirements.
Natural was founded by CEO Kahlil Lalji, Eric Wang and Walt Leung. The company said it was launched 342 days before the announcement and has grown to a team of 17 employees.
The funding will support hiring across the organization as Natural races to build infrastructure for the shift from human-executed to agent-executed payments. The company believes AI agents could become some of the most important participants in the global financial system.
KEY QUOTES:
“Agents are going to become one of the most, if not the most, important financial actors in the global economy. The question is not whether agents will move money. The question is who builds the infrastructure that makes agentic payments safe, reliable, compliant, and useful at scale. That is what we are building at Natural.”
“We made a bet on agentic payments a year ago, when no one was talking about it. We knew that we needed to own that entire stack. Natural builds and operates the primitives directly: ledgering, money movement, multi-bank settlement, multi-currency, fraud and compliance, agent identity and observability, and more.”
“We are moving with an unbelievable level of intensity because the market is moving extremely quickly. The shift from human-executed payments to agent-executed payments is already underway, and Natural is building the infrastructure required to support that shift.”
Kahlil Lalji, CEO and Co-Founder of Natural
