Ready to Bank on AI? Meet the Startup That’s Betting Big on Digital Dollars!

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In a move that makes bankers look over their digital shoulders, Circle cofounder Sean Neville has decided that the world needs another bank. But this one is special—it’s an AI-native bank, which probably means you can communicate with your money via a really smart, slightly sarcastic robot. 💸🤖

On May 20, Neville announced that his brainchild, Catena Labs, had raked in a cool $18 million in seed funding—because who doesn’t want their bank to be funded with four more than the usual number of zeroes? The venture was led by Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto division, no less, with some other notable investors like Breyer Capital, Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, and NFL legend Tom Brady (yes, you read that right—Tom Brady is now into banking, apparently). The deal included not just cash, but also rights to future cryptos, which sounds suspiciously like Monopoly money but with cooler hats. 🎩

Neville, who previously co-founded Circle and helped coin the second-biggest stablecoin—USDC—has apparently been lurking in the background since early 2020, working on this new scheme of financial wizardry with cofounder Matt Venables, a former engineering wizard from Circle. Since the world seems increasingly obsessed with AI, they jumped on the bandwagon in 2023, realizing that if you’re going to build a bank for the future, it might as well be an AI-powered one. Because who needs humans when your bank can chat, decide, and probably do your laundry? 🧺🤖

Showing that they’re serious about this high-tech venture, Catena Labs has developed a nifty open-source protocol for AI-powered payments and digital identities—basically, a way to meet your financial advisor and your banker anywhere, even in your pajamas. Neville was quoted as saying, “You should be able to meet your financial advisor and your banker everywhere you want to be,” which is reassuring if you’ve ever wanted your bank to be just a click away, even at 3 a.m., probably arguing with your AI about whether you really need that donut. 🍩

While details are scarce as a goldfish in a paper bag, they’ve built some early tech for payments and identity verification that runs on open-source goodness—because who doesn’t love a little chaos and transparency? And don’t expect a product launch anytime soon; they’re still in the “we’re working on it” phase. Neville also kept mum about company valuation, adding a touch of mystery to the mix. 🕵️‍♂️

Speculation swirls that Neville’s old stomping ground, Circle, could be gobbled up by Coinbase—which, incidentally, co-created USDC and might be eyeing some sort of corporate merger or acquisition. Circle’s valuation aim? A modest $5 billion—because why not dream big when you’re building the future of AI banking? 🚀

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2025-05-20 16:32