A new start, Lava paymentsIt aims to take over the payments giants, creating a solution for the modern web, where AI agents are now handling transactions for their customers. The idea came to founder Mitchell Jones after leaving Fintech’s previous start, Lendtable, as he began experimenting with AI.
He saw the opportunity to create a system that would make the use of AI payments and the agent simpler and more friendly to developers. While experimenting with an AI application and trying to build what he thought was something simple, he realized that he quickly spent more than $ 400 trying to build a key agent filling agent.
“I kept running on the same issue,” he told TechCrunch. “I used the same underlying models and tools over and over again, but through different wraps or platforms.” And every time, a new subscription had to start, review and pay separately, “even though I already pay to access the basic model”.
“This felt fundamentally broken,” he continued. “I didn’t want to continue to reuse the same thing under a different wrapper. What I wanted was just a wallet, a set of credits and the ability to move between tools and providers without starting every time I could pay for what I used.”
Decided to start lava payments as a solution.
LAVA is a digital wallet that allows traders to use use credits to facilitate transactions.
The idea is that a set of credits working to all traders and services makes it easier for autonomous agents to pay payments without the need for human intervention. It works so: A trader can allow lava wallet for its customers to use and upload (credits) money. Once a customer does this, they can get this money and use it to any trader who also receives LAVA and any of the fundamental models, such as GPT and Claude, with a “fee as you go”, Jones said.
So, instead of having to pay for each tool, a user buys a lump sum use that AI agents can simply charge as they perform various duties. No longer ask the user to approve the transaction after the transaction.
“Without lava, agents cannot move smoothly online because they are constantly blocked when time comes to pay,” he said. Use Google as an example, saying whenever a person opens Google maps, he does not need to pay Google for this map, as they have already paid Verizon and AT&T for internet access.
On Wednesday, the start announced a $ 5.8 million seed round led by Lerer Hippeau.
Others in this area include newly established companies such as Metronome.
“We see the world as very interconnected,” Jones said of what his product is doing different. ‘What we really focus on is building [for the] Economic economy of the agent. ”
Born in a family family in Deiton, Ohio, Jones said his parents have always told him that the best way to move on was to work hard, save money and get a good education.
“You know, many of the things most people say,” he recalled when he talks to TechCrunch.
Jones got this advice in the heart. He got a good training (Yale), did some good jobs (Goldman, Meta), and then founded some companies (Fintechs Pillable and Lendtable, the last of which were YC S20).
Jones said he met with his head investors for lava because he went to high school with Will McCelvey, now investor at Lerer Hippeau. He said that McKelvey was pursuing his career for a while and always wanted to work together one day and the lava payments were that one day.
Others in the round included Harlem Capital, improved businesses and west. Fresh capital will be used to recruit, build products and develop Go-To-Market strategies.
Overall, Jones is ready for the lava to be the “invisible layer of this kind of Ai Web forces,” he says, especially as AI agents are increasingly on the checkout line.
“We need to allow agents to move, deal and build without friction,” he said.
“We want to make sure AI is something that can be used by every person, even a child from Deiton, like me.”
The title of this piece was informed to properly reflect what the company is doing.
