Svmuu reports that Catena Labs, an AI financial infrastructure company founded by Sean Neville, co-founder of stablecoin issuer Circle, has announced the completion of a $30 million Series A funding round. The round was co-led by Acrew Capital and Andreessen Horowitz's a16z crypto, with participation from Breyer Capital, General Catalyst, QED, and others. Catena Labs focuses on building "AI-native banking" infrastructure, aiming to enable AI agents to securely execute financial operations such as payments, transfers, and fund management. The company also announced that it has applied for a New York National Trust Bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to support payment processing and customer fund custody. (Fortune)