Natural raises $30M to build payments infrastructure for AI agents

Natural, a San Francisco-based payments infrastructure startup, closed a $30 million Series A led by Kirsten Green at Forerunner Ventures just 193 days after launch. The round, which includes participation from Human Capital, Abstract, Wischoff Ventures, and angel investors including Akshay Kothari of Notion, Pete Koomen of Y Combinator, Art Levy of Brex, and Logan and Jake Paul's Antifund, brings total funding to more than $40 million in under a year. Co-founded by Kahlil Lalji, Eric Wang, and Walt Leung 342 days ago, Natural is positioning itself as a Stripe rival focused on AI agents rather than humans as customers.

Natural is designing financial infrastructure specifically for AI agents to hold wallets, receive payments, pay invoices, make purchases, issue cards, and transfer funds across banks and currencies without human approval. The company owns its stack directly, including ledgering, multi-bank settlement, and multi-currency movement. The agentic AI payments market is projected to grow from $7 billion to $93 billion by 2032. Natural has 17 employees and is hiring across every function.