Gradient Labs from ex-Monzo team doubles Series A to $26m as AI agents manage financial operations
Gradient Labs has secured an additional $13 million in funding, expanding its Series A to $26 million as the London-based startup pushes deeper into automating regulated financial operations with purpose-built AI agents. The fresh capital comes from new investors Octopus Ventures and CommerzVentures, alongside follow-on backing from existing supporters Redpoint Ventures and Exceptional Capital.
The company, founded in 2023 by former early employees of UK challenger bank Monzo, now serves fintechs that collectively reach more than 32 million end users. Revenue has grown 900% over the past year, and customer satisfaction scores consistently reach up to 98%. Gradient Labs says the new funding will fuel expansion across the United States and support its broader ambition to build AI-powered financial assistants capable of handling increasingly complex customer operations.
Prior to this expansion, Gradient Labs raised $13 million in a Series A led by Redpoint Ventures in 2025, with participation from Exceptional Capital, LocalGlobe, Puzzle Ventures, and Liquid 2 Ventures. That round reportedly brought the company’s valuation to $60 million. The company also secured $3.8 million in seed funding in 2024, led by LocalGlobe, with participation from Puzzle Ventures, Tom Blomfield, and other angel investors. In total, Gradient Labs has raised approximately $16.6 million across its funding rounds.
How the AI agents automate complex, regulated financial operations
Gradient Labs develops vertical AI agents specifically designed for financial services. Rather than offering generic customer service bots, the platform automates some of the industry’s most expensive and time-consuming processes: customer servicing, Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, lending workflows, dispute resolution, fraud handling, and back-office operations. The company positions its technology as the “agent layer” that financial services need to run customer operations autonomously.
The platform integrates into banks’ and fintechs’ existing infrastructure, enabling organisations to automate complex workflows without overhauling their systems. It combines large language model-based agents with structured workflows, system integrations, and compliance guardrails. The company also leverages tools like Temporal for agentic architecture development. The flagship AI agent was launched in November 2024.
On performance, Gradient Labs reports that its AI agents achieve 40–60% out-of-the-box resolution rates, which can increase to up to 80% with further optimisation. Customer satisfaction scores regularly hit 98%, often outperforming human agents. Across its lending deployments alone, the company handles hundreds of thousands of voice calls monthly.
The founding team — CEO Dimitri Masin, CTO Neal Lathia, and Chief Scientist Danai Antoniou — are all former early employees of Monzo, where they helped build the challenger bank’s data science and machine learning capabilities across customer operations and financial crime. Their experience in a highly regulated environment shaped the company’s focus on compliance, security, and customer trust. Gradient Labs was created specifically to address the stricter requirements financial institutions face when deploying AI.
Its customer base spans both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, it has signed Stash, Rho, and Current. In the UK and Europe, customers include Wise, Monzo, Zego, Plum, Lendable, Yonder, Nala, Sling, Pockit, and a major regulated UK bank. The company also targets wealth management, insurance, and crypto firms.
Why investors are betting on Gradient Labs
Gradient Labs operates in one of the fastest-growing categories in enterprise AI. The global market for AI agents in financial services was estimated at $691.3 million in 2025 and is projected to reach $6.7 billion by 2033, with a compound annual growth rate of 31.5%. North America dominated the market in 2025 with a 37.8% share ($0.81 billion), while Europe held 31% ($0.54 billion). Key segments include fraud detection agents and traditional banks.
Competition is intense. Sierra, co-founded by former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor and ex-Google Labs head Clay Bavor, raised $350 million in September 2025 and has since closed a further $950 million round at a $15.8 billion valuation. Decagon secured $250 million in Series D funding at a valuation of $4.5 billion. PolyAI has raised $86 million for enterprise-grade voice AI systems. Other players include Forethought AI, Capacity, and Ada.
What sets Gradient Labs apart, according to the company and its investors, is its narrow focus on regulated financial services. Rather than building general-purpose AI agents, the company has designed its technology around the compliance, risk management, and operational requirements unique to banks and fintechs. Both Octopus Ventures and CommerzVentures are no strangers to backing fintech infrastructure plays; the two investors previously co-invested in London insurtech Flock’s $38 million Series B.
“What we’re building is the agent layer that financial services need to run their customer operations autonomously. It has to work the way they do, connect to the systems they have already built, and handle the long-running work that has stayed manual until now,” said Dimitri Masin, co-founder and CEO of Gradient Labs.
The company was named one of Europe’s 50 most promising seed-stage startups in 2025 and included in Greenfield Partners’ “60 AI Disruptors” list. Danai Antoniou was named one of Europe’s 100 women shaping the future of tech.
Gradient Labs is positioning itself at the centre of a broader transformation already underway. UK fintechs including Monzo and Wise are deploying AI to cut operational costs and scale customer service — Monzo has developed a system that scores transactions in real time for fraud prevention and an AI-driven self-service system that allows customers to resolve 42% of simpler queries independently. Wise uses AI and machine learning to detect fraudulent activity, contributing to a significant reduction in customer losses to scams. The UK government has appointed Monzo co-founder Tom Blomfield as an AI ambassador as part of its broader AI strategy. The UK fintech sector attracted $3.6 billion in investment in 2024, second only to the US, while a recognised “transatlantic divide” sees the US leading in scaled implementation of generative AI and the UK excelling in agile, regulatory-supported innovation.
