AI agents are starting to perform more sophisticated tasks, such as identifying suppliers who can deliver cargo, comparing prices and messaging the supplier to arrange a delivery. But when it comes to paying for shipping, they have to include a human.
Today’s financial sector is based on financial rails, the underlying infrastructure that moves money and information between money and financial information between banks, businesses and consumers. But these financial rails were built for human-initiated transactions, not autonomous AI agents. For example, traditional payment systems like credit cards and ACH rely on human authorization for transactions, which slows down agents designed to operate autonomously.
A new startup, Natural, is tackling the problem by redesigning the entire system from the ground up. And now it has $30 million in fresh capital to pursue an ambitious plan that will put it in direct competition with giants like Stripe.
About a year ago, Natural co-founder and CEO Kahlil Lalji realized that AI agents were evolving faster than the existing financial architecture, which cannot support tasks such as autonomously paying a seller, collecting payments, or transacting with each other.
Lalji has a background in banking and finance, but as he prepared to launch another startup, he hoped to avoid the industry. Ivella’s previous startup, a YC-backed banking and financial product for couples, was sold in 2023 to Earnin, where he worked as an engineer for two years. He told TechCrunch that he was burned out by the financial sector after the end of the zero interest rate era.
And yet, Lalji could not ignore the opportunity.
“I kept coming back to it,” he said. “It’s clear that dealer payments will be structurally the most important problem [in the] space.”
Lalji partnered with Eric Wang, his co-founder at Ivella, and Walt Leung, former director of engineering at Nextdoor, and founded Natural in 2025. The startup is positioning itself as an agent orchestration layer that allows AI agents to move and store funds. By integrating Natural’s infrastructure, companies can enable their agents to make autonomous payments, collect funds, and transact with both humans and other agents.
Natural caught the attention of Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner of VC firm Forerunner. Green, whose company focuses on consumer experiences and the future of commerce, led a $30 million Series A round in the company, bringing the company’s total funding to $40 million.
Green was drawn to Natural’s broader ambitions. The startup is not just focused on helping agents pay and check goods on behalf of consumers, but is also trying to reinvent the payment infrastructure, including how to handle disputed transactions.
Although Natural has operated in beta testing until now, Lalji told TechCrunch that the startup has made several critical architectural decisions to give it a “good shot” at competing with incumbents like Stripe, which is also struggling to redesign the payment rails for AI agents.
Lalji hopes that Natural’s rapid development speed will allow it to overtake the established giants and build the payments infrastructure that will serve as the financial backbone of AI agents. The startup’s mission has attracted senior staff who previously worked at fintech giants Stripe, Ramp and Square.
Although Natural sees Stripe as its main competitor, several other startups, including DCVC-backed Skyfire Systems, are trying to reinvent the payment backbone for AI agents using USD-backed stablecoins. While Natural plans to integrate stablecoins into its architecture, it also supports traditional bank payments.
While there is a tough race to dominate the sector, Lalji bets that the entire market could grow significantly if transactions are done at computer speed rather than human speed. “The number of payments that can be made in the world can be two or three or four orders of magnitude greater than the number of payments that exist today,” he said.
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