Catena Labs
“Can a chartered bank purpose-built for AI agents own the money layer of the agentic economy?”
Founded2022
HQBoston, Massachusetts, United States
FoundersSean Neville, Matt Venables
Total raised$48M
Latest roundSeries A, 2026
IndustryInfrastructure / BaaS
The story
Catena Labs was founded in 2022 by Circle co-founder Sean Neville and former Circle product engineering SVP Matt Venables to build a bank purpose-built for AI agents. The thesis: fintech platforms only route money, while agents transacting at scale need a chartered bank that can hold funds, govern them, and stand behind them. Catena operates through regulated partners today while pursuing an OCC national trust bank charter to become bank-backed itself; its stack pairs a non-custodial digital-asset account (via Turnkey TEEs) with fiat and stablecoin liquidity, deterministic policy enforcement, and immutable audit trails for agent actions.
Last 12 months
Product timeline
2022
Catena Labs founded in Boston by Circle co-founder Sean Neville and former Circle SVP Matt Venables· pivot
2025
$18M seed led by a16z crypto; open-sourced Agent Commerce Kit (ACK) for agent identity and payment flows· banking
2026
Filed for OCC national trust bank charter and raised $30M Series A co-led by Acrew Capital and a16z crypto· banking
2026
Opened Private Access program: agent identity/governance + fiat and stablecoin liquidity, yield, and risk management· banking
2026
Catena live on Arc; ACK v2 released with x402-native payment profile; x402 on Catena for dollar accounts and controls· banking
2026
Applied to charter Catena Trust Bank, N.A. — national trust bank (OCC, New York, NY); conditional approval — Corporate Decision 1392 2026-09-18. [charter]· banking
Regulated entities
1
regulatory licence held by Catena Labs
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
Bank charter application
Catena Trust Bank, N.A.Conditional approval
National trust bank · OCC · New York, NY · filed 2026-05-18
Conditional approval · Corporate Decision 1392 · 2026-09-18
Custody, conversion, clearing and payment services for AI agents — GENIUS Act stablecoins, fiat and securities — from Circle co-founder Sean Neville's agent-finance bank.
Source · OCC decision letter
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Catena Labs’s embedded-finance stack
Money movement
Lending
in the full report
FX & payouts
in the full report
Crypto
in the full report
Accounting gap: minor
4 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.