Natural Raises $30M to Build Payment Rails for Autonomous AI Agents

Payments become the bottleneck for autonomous AI

AI agents can now identify freight vendors, compare prices, and arrange deliveries—but they still need a human to approve payment. That friction point has become the focus of Natural, a startup that just raised $30 million in Series A funding to build financial infrastructure designed for autonomous agents rather than human-initiated transactions.

The problem stems from how existing payment systems work. Credit cards and ACH transfers require human authorization at critical junctures, creating delays that undermine the speed advantages of autonomous systems. Natural is redesigning these financial rails from scratch to eliminate that dependency.

Why it matters

As AI agents take on more complex commercial tasks, payment infrastructure has emerged as a critical constraint. Companies deploying agents for procurement, vendor management, or customer transactions face a fundamental mismatch: their agents operate at machine speed but must slow down to human pace for financial approvals. The startup that solves this problem could capture enormous value as agent-to-agent commerce scales—potentially increasing global payment volume by orders of magnitude.

From banking burnout to billion-dollar opportunity

CEO Kahlil Lalji initially wanted to avoid the finance sector entirely. His previous startup Ivella, a YC-backed banking product for couples, sold to Earnin in 2023, and he spent two years there as an engineer during the post-ZIRP downturn. Despite that experience, he couldn't ignore what he saw as "structurally the most important problem" in the space.

Lalji founded Natural in 2025 alongside Eric Wang, his Ivella co-founder, and Walt Leung, formerly an engineering manager at Nextdoor. The company positions itself as an agent orchestration layer that enables AI agents to move and store funds, make autonomous payments, collect money, and transact with both humans and other agents.

Forerunner leads $30M round

Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner, led the Series A, bringing Natural's total funding to $40 million. Green's firm typically focuses on consumer experiences and commerce futures, and she was drawn to Natural's broader ambitions beyond simple checkout flows. The startup is tackling disputed transactions and other infrastructure challenges that incumbents haven't yet redesigned for autonomous systems.

Natural has operated in beta until now, but Lalji says the company has made enough core architectural decisions to compete effectively with Stripe, which is also racing to adapt payment rails for AI agents. Natural has attracted senior talent from Stripe, Ramp, and Square to execute on that vision.

Competing approaches emerge

Natural isn't alone in pursuing this opportunity. DCVC-backed Skyfire Systems is building similar infrastructure using USD-backed stablecoins. Natural plans to incorporate stablecoins but is also building support for traditional bank payments, hedging across multiple payment technologies.

Lalji believes the entire market could expand dramatically once transactions happen at computer speed rather than human speed. He estimates the number of payments globally could increase by "two or three or four orders of magnitude" as agents transact autonomously.

Details of Natural's funding and product roadmap were first reported by TechCrunch.