Why we’re building GrailPay

We’re thrilled to announce GrailPay has raised $6.7M to build the risk network for bank payments. Led by Construct Capital and trusted by over 10,000 businesses to safeguard their bank payments, we’re fortunate to have partnered with world-class funds, Commerce Ventures, Broadhaven Capital, Soma Capital, alongside partners & angels across the fintech ecosystem, following our initial funding led by Noemis Ventures. 

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You can read the press release here.

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We’re building GrailPay with a clear mission: to build the authorization & data layer for bank payments.

The past few years have seen incredible growth & innovation across fintech, from the rise of API-enabled banking to the promise of stablecoins. However, the backbone of the American payments system, which our modern economy is built on, is ACH – a 50-year-old network, processing $86T a year, that has been left behind by the ecosystem of innovation.

GrailPay is designed to act as the authorization layer for the rapid rise in faster payments with the next generation of payments. By effectively authenticating counterparties’ bank accounts with as little data as an account & routing number, assessing the risk of a bank payment with our machine learning models, and offering guaranteed settlement, GrailPay has built the data & risk stack to power this generational transition.

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The insight

We first built a bank payment processing platform, primarily focused on ACH. To give us the right to make the trust layer for bank payments that will withstand the test of time, we needed to cut our teeth in every detail of what makes money move from point A to point B.

By pairing payments with risk & data, we’ve been able to quietly amass a data asset to understand bank payments with deep granularity. What others overlooked, we took as our opportunity. With well over $100B in returns in bank payments every year in the United States and faster payments growing by over 40% a year, there is no better time to solve this problem and bring trust to bank payments.

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The vision

Commerce is evolving at a pace never before seen. With the rise of agentic commerce, stablecoins, and digital payments more broadly, we are at a critical inflection point in the ecosystem. We are living in a world where both 40% of B2B payments are still checks while AI agents are buying groceries for us. It may take a week to get money from my customer over legacy ACH or I can send money to anyone instantly with a stablecoin. What is necessary to bridge the gap for the next generation of payments? Trust.

Payments are getting faster. RTP, FedNow, same-day ACH, stablecoins – they are all growing at unprecedented rates. Why? People want their money and they want it now. However, in order for a payment to move instantly, a few things are necessary: You have to know whether a payment will fail operationally, if it’s a fraudulent transaction, or if it will even settle because there’s no money in the bank account. Faster payment rails are growing exponentially, but the data & decisioning to usher in this new age hasn’t kept up.

At GrailPay’s foundation, we are building the trusted bank payment network for the age of instant payments. What started as an ACH processor has grown into a comprehensive suite of risk & data tools to allow enterprise payment platforms, financial institutions, and fintechs to reduce risk on their bank payments and allow every business to access safer & instant payments.

Our network will only get stronger and our models more precise as we continue to double down on what we do best because we’re not building a payments business, we’re building a trust business.

What’s next?

We are relentlessly focused on a few things:

• Growing culture – We’re building a world-class team of low ego, truth-seeking, and curious team members who iterate quickly. Reach out if you’re interested in learning more.
• Partner obsession – We intend to be the best partner in a tech stack. We pursue aggressive standards for what it means to have high standards for a quality partnership.
• Product excellence – Do less better. Our focus is on doing one thing better than anyone: understanding bank payments and their risk.

Our fundraising allows us to continue to double down on these core areas of focus and help companies reduce their risk and make their payments faster over bank transfers. We couldn’t be more excited for all to come and we’re grateful for the team we’re building, investors that we’ve partnered with, and community that’s along for the ride. 

If you are a fintech who sees ACH returns, a payments company who processes ACH for merchants, or a financial institution opening new accounts for your customers, we’d love to chat. Feel free to schedule a demo.

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Onwards.

Will Messina

Co-founder & CEO

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