# Gil Akos

> Gil Akos is the co-founder and CEO of Astra, a payments infrastructure company that lets developers move money bank-to-bank in real time. Trained as an architect with graduate work at Columbia, he taught himself programming, then earned a stack of Udacity nanodegrees in machine learning and AI to build the company he imagined. Under his leadership Astra crossed $1 billion in lifetime payments processed and pushed past a $2 billion annualized run rate, positioning the company as connective tissue for instant payouts across vertical SaaS, marketplaces, and earned wage access.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Astra
- **Organizations:** Astra, Mode Lab, Pratt Institute
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Architectural Studies and Architecture, University of Kansas, Postgraduate, Advanced Architectural Design, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation (GSAPP), Nanodegrees in Machine Learning Engineer, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning Foundations, and React, Udacity
- **Known for:** Co-founded and scaled Astra into a real-time payments infrastructure company processing over $1 billion in lifetime volume., Drove Astra past a $2 billion annualized payment run rate by early 2025., Self-taught his way from architecture into machine learning, completing four and a half Udacity nanodegrees to build his product.

## Career timeline

- **2000s** — Studied architecture at the University of Kansas, then advanced architectural design at Columbia GSAPP, teaching himself five programming languages in a single semester.
- **2008** — Laid off from design work as the recession hit the architecture industry.
- **2010s** — Co-founded and led Mode Lab as Technology Co-Founder and Executive Chairman, focused on computational design, AI, and automation; taught at Pratt Institute.
- **2016** — Co-founded Astra with Sam Morgan to bring smart, automated money movement to consumers and developers.
- **2016-2018** — Completed four and a half Udacity nanodegrees in ML, AI, deep learning, and React to build Astra's technology himself.
- **2022** — Astra raised a $10M Series A alongside a $30M credit facility (debt financing), bringing total funding to roughly $40M.
- **2024** — Astra surpassed $1 billion in lifetime payments processed and a $1 billion annual run-rate volume.
- **2025** — Astra doubled annualized payment volume to more than $2 billion in the first week of the year, targeting another 5x growth year.

## Achievements

- Co-founded and scaled Astra into a real-time payments infrastructure company processing over $1 billion in lifetime volume.
- Drove Astra past a $2 billion annualized payment run rate by early 2025.
- Self-taught his way from architecture into machine learning, completing four and a half Udacity nanodegrees to build his product.
- Built a developer platform that takes integrations live in about 7 days versus a 12-week industry norm.
- Raised roughly $40M in total funding for Astra, including a $10M Series A and a $30M credit facility in 2022.

## Latest updates

- **2025-01** — Astra doubled its annualized payment volume to more than $2 billion in the first week of 2025, on track for another 5x growth year.
- **2024-12** — Astra crossed $1 billion in lifetime payments processed and a $1 billion annual run-rate volume.

## Links

- Website: https://astra.finance
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/gilakos
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/gil_akos
- GitHub: https://github.com/gilakos

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/gil-akos
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-27