# Catena Labs

> Catena Labs is a Boston-based fintech building what it calls the first AI-native financial institution - a regulated bank and governance platform designed for AI agents that autonomously send and receive money. Founded in 2025 by Circle co-founder and USDC co-creator Sean Neville, Catena pairs agent identity, deterministic spending policies, and audit trails with account management and stablecoin, card, ACH and wire payment rails. It also open-sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK), a set of protocols for agent identity and payments built on W3C web standards.

- **Founded:** 2025
- **Headquarters:** Boston, Massachusetts, United States
- **Founders:** Sean Neville (Co-founder & CEO), Matt Venables (Co-founder & CTO)
- **Team size:** 17 employees
- **Products:** Catena Platform, Agent Commerce Kit (ACK), ACK-ID, ACK-Lab
- **Notable:** Emerged from stealth in May 2025 with $18M seed funding led by a16z crypto, Raised a $30M Series A in May 2026 led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto, Open-sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK) for agent identity and payments

## Products & services

- **Catena Platform** — An invite-only governance and banking platform where teams set guardrails - spending limits, approved recipients, balance caps - that AI agents execute within, plus account management and payments via cards, ACH, wires, and stablecoins.
- **Agent Commerce Kit (ACK)** — An open-source set of protocols and building blocks addressing agent identity and payment flows, founded on open W3C web standards so agents can operate their own accounts and wallets.
- **ACK-ID** — An identity protocol establishing verifiable agent identity using W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) and Verifiable Credentials (VCs).
- **ACK-Lab** — A developer preview offering trust infrastructure for agentic commerce, letting builders test agent identity and payment flows.

## Achievements

- Emerged from stealth in May 2025 with $18M seed funding led by a16z crypto
- Raised a $30M Series A in May 2026 led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto
- Open-sourced the Agent Commerce Kit (ACK) for agent identity and payments
- Applied for a national trust bank charter from the OCC
- Attracted a strikingly broad angel roster including Balaji Srinivasan, Sam Palmisano, and Tom Brady

## Latest updates

- **2026-05** — Closed a $30M Series A led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto to fund hiring and platform development.
- **2026-05** — Opened invite-only access to its platform, letting users set guardrails - spending limits, approved recipients, and balance caps - for money-handling AI agents.
- **2026-05** — Applied for a national trust bank charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
- **2025-05** — Emerged from stealth with $18M seed funding and released the open-source Agent Commerce Kit (ACK).

## Links

- Website: https://catena.com
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/catenalabs
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/catena_labs
- GitHub: https://github.com/catena-labs

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/catena
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-22