Natural Secures $30M to Revolutionize Payments for AI Agents and Challenge Stripe

AI agents are progressively adept at managing intricate tasks such as selecting freight vendors, evaluating prices, and communicating with vendors to schedule deliveries. Nonetheless, human participation remains essential for processing shipment payments.

The existing financial framework is built on financial rails—foundational systems that facilitate the movement of money and information across banks, businesses, and consumers. These rails were established for transactions initiated by humans rather than those executed autonomously by AI agents. For instance, traditional payment mechanisms, including credit cards and ACH, require human authorization, which limits the efficiency of agents designed for independent operation.

A new startup, Natural, is tackling this issue by completely reimagining the financial system. With a recent funding boost of $30 million, the company is poised to challenge major players like Stripe.

Approximately a year ago, Kahlil Lalji, co-founder and CEO of Natural, recognized that the evolution of AI agents was outpacing the current financial infrastructure, which struggled to support functions such as autonomous vendor payments, payment collections, or inter-agent transactions.

Although Lalji has a background in banking and finance, he aimed to distance himself from the sector for his next startup. His previous venture, Ivella—supported by Y Combinator—focused on banking and financial products for couples and was sold to Earnin in 2023, where he worked as an engineer for two years. He shared with TechCrunch his disillusionment with the finance sector following the conclusion of the Zero Interest Rate Policy era.

Nevertheless, Lalji couldn’t ignore the potential within this domain.

“I found myself drawn back to it,” he commented. “It seems evident that agentic payments will be the pivotal issue in this field.”

Lalji teamed up with Eric Wang, his co-founder from Ivella, and Walt Leung, a former engineering manager at Nextdoor, to launch Natural in 2025. The startup intends to serve as an orchestration layer for agents, enabling AI to manage and hold funds. By integrating Natural’s infrastructure, businesses can empower their agents to process autonomous payments, collect funds, and engage in transactions with both humans and other agents.

Natural has attracted the interest of Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner of VC firm Forerunner. Green, whose firm focuses on consumer experiences and the future of commerce, spearheaded a $30 million Series A funding round for the startup, raising its total funding to $40 million.

Green was intrigued by Natural’s expansive vision. The startup aims not only to assist agents with payments and purchases but also to innovate payment infrastructure, including the management of disputed transactions.

Although Natural has been in beta testing thus far, Lalji informed TechCrunch that the startup has made significant architectural decisions that position it well to compete with established firms like Stripe, which is also updating payment rails for AI agents.

Lalji is confident that Natural’s swift progress will enable it to surpass established competitors and create the payment infrastructure that will support AI agents financially. This vision has drawn senior talent from fintech leaders such as Stripe, Ramp, and Square.

While Natural views Stripe as its main competitor, other startups, like DCVC-backed Skyfire Systems, are also aiming to reshape the payment infrastructure for AI agents using USD-backed stablecoins. Natural plans to incorporate stablecoins into its system while also working to facilitate traditional bank payments.

In this competitive arena, Lalji believes that the market could see considerable growth if transactions take place at computer speed, rather than human speed. “The volume of payments occurring globally could increase by two, three, or even four orders of magnitude compared to today,” he noted.