Led · Series B · Jun 2026

Forage builds modern payment infrastructure to enable retailers and platforms to accept government benefits such as SNAP, WIC, HSA, and FSA, and operates a consumer app that lets low-income families check EBT balances, discover savings, and earn rewards. Its payments technology is live at over 100,000 stores across all 50 states and is used by national retailers like Dollar General, Gopuff, and Save A Lot, as well as online platforms including DoorDash and Uber Eats. The company says it has facilitated tens of millions of grocery orders for millions of American families and grew payments volume 13x over the last year. Forage launched its consumer app in late 2025, which has been downloaded over 100,000 times, and the company aims to reach one million low-income families via the app by the end of 2026. The firm positions itself as the only USDA-approved third-party payment processor that combines modern software with dedicated service to help retailers through authorization and launch. Forage is based in San Francisco.

Led · Seed · Dec 2025

Alinia AI develops an API-based platform that embeds real-time auditing, guardrails and risk controls into AI workflows, with initial focus on banking and wealth management use cases. Its Guardrails API includes modules such as Investment Guard for MiFID II compliance and a multilingual Hallucination Detector that can be tuned to varying risk thresholds. The system is already deployed at Santander Group and Origin Financial, demonstrating early enterprise adoption. Founded by former Twitter, IBM and Hugging Face engineers Ariadna Font Llitjós and Carlos Muñoz Ferrandis, the company operates out of New York and Barcelona. Alinia differentiates itself from competitors by targeting nuanced, jurisdiction-specific infractions rather than generic content filtering. The team plans to expand AI engineering, research, sales and customer-success headcount across Europe and the U.S. to meet demand. Over the next three years, management aims to position Alinia as the core compliance infrastructure for AI agents across regulated industries. To date, the company has raised $7.5 million in seed financing to fund product enhancement and large-scale deployments.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2025

Sakana AI is a Tokyo-based AI research lab focused on creating foundation models inspired by natural systems. The company builds AI foundation models and positions its expertise around using AI to optimize business operations. It intends to use the new investment to expand operations and advance its development efforts. Sakana AI entered a collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric, which plans to leverage the startup’s capabilities to expand solutions and businesses tied to its Serendie digital platform. The company is led by co-founders David Ha (CEO), Llion Jones (CTO) and Ren Ito (COO).

Participated · Equity · Oct 2025

Hyperlayer offers an infrastructure-agnostic platform that plugs into existing banking cores, enabling banks, wealth managers, and asset managers to spin up programmable accounts, loyalty programs, wealth-management integrations, and cash-management features in a fraction of the usual time. The same toolkit allows non-financial brands—such as retailers and sports clubs—to embed finance and programmable rewards that deepen customer engagement and generate new revenue streams. Led by former Morgan Stanley International CEO Rob Rooney, the company is already powering advanced account functionality, rewards, and new wealth-management tools for unnamed global Tier-1 banks. Fresh capital will be directed toward expanding Hyperlayer’s product and engineering teams and accelerating international expansion. The article does not disclose revenue figures, user numbers, or other key operating metrics.

Led · Seed · Mar 2025

Burbank provides a payment solution, Card-Present over Internet (CPoI), that enables Card-Present payments to be accepted in online channels for the first time. Its technology integrates directly into mobile applications to enable a simple and frictionless consumer payments experience with bank-grade security, speed and scalability. The company says the solution reduces fraud, processing fees and chargebacks for merchants while eliminating false positives. Burbank is led by CEO Justin Pike and is based in Cardiff, Wales, UK. It raised GBP 5M in Seed funding to support its plans. The company intends to use the funds to support the launch of its platform.