Ralio Raises $2.5M In Europe’s Largest Agentic Payments Funding Round
UK fintech startup is building Europe's first payments infrastructure tailored for business AI agents
Funding led by SVV (Sure Valley Ventures) alongside Seed X, Love Ventures, Plug and Play and leading fintech investors with continued support from Antler
Ralio provides the essential guardrails needed for autonomous AI systems to transact across B2B financial workflows
London, UK - 14 April 2026: Ralio, the payments platform purpose-built for AI agents, has today announced a $2.5 million pre-seed funding round. The investment marks the largest agentic payments round in Europe to date, positioning Ralio as the foundational infrastructure for a new era of autonomous economic actors.
The oversubscribed funding round was led by SVV (Sure Valley Ventures) with participation from venture funds Seed X, Love Ventures, Plug and Play, rule30, Adeline Arts and Science, Endurance Ventures, Campus Fund, fintech investor Alan Morgan and continuous investment from Antler.
While AI agents are becoming increasingly autonomous, existing payment rails were designed for humans, requiring manual authentication, approval flows, and human-centric fraud logic. Every workaround currently used to enable agentic transactions creates significant, financial and reputational risk.
Ralio provides a dedicated payments layer that embeds guardrails, identity verification and audit trails into agentic transactions. This infrastructure allows businesses to trust their AI systems to safely and accountably move money using various payment rails including bank transfers, cards and stablecoins.
Ghali Bennani Laafiret, Cofounder & CEO of Ralio, comments, “AI agents are no longer just productivity tools, they are becoming autonomous economic actors capable of procuring services and managing capital. However, the world of finance is still built for human intervention. Ralio is building the missing layer that makes agentic finance safe and scalable for the enterprise. This funding will allow us to accelerate our product development and ensure that as AI begins to transact, it does so within a framework of total accountability.”
The funding will be used to further develop Ralio's core platform and expand its engineering team in London. By providing a secure environment for AI agents to operate, Ralio aims to unlock a new wave of B2B efficiency where autonomous systems can manage complex financial workflows without human bottlenecks.
Barry Downes, Managing Partner at SVV, commented: “AI agents are increasingly executing autonomous transactions, but payment infrastructure still relies heavily on human oversight - creating real regulatory and financial risk. Ralio is building the payments infrastructure layer to address this - embedding verification and compliance directly into agentic payments. What stood out was Ghali and Leo's unique combination of deep payments expertise and proven commercial execution. This is category-defining infrastructure for agentic payments and exactly the type of opportunity we look for at SVV.”
Backed by Antler from day one, Ralio's pre-seed was 3x oversubscribed within three months of founding. That pace reflects the founding team: CEO Ghali Bennani Laafiret scaled revenue operations at multiple unicorns including fintech Alan and B2B software LumApps and CTO Leonardo Rosales rebuilt payment infrastructure for Tier 1 banks at Form3. They have spent their careers at the exact intersection of financial infrastructure and B2B growth and founded Ralio to own it.
Adam French, Partner at Antler, comments, “Ralio is tackling one of the most significant challenges in the next decade of AI adoption. For AI to reach its full potential, it must be able to move value safely. We backed this team because they have the domain expertise to bridge the gap between legacy payment systems and the future of autonomous finance. Their progress since founding just a few months ago has been exceptional, and we are proud to support them as they build a new category in fintech.”
