New York-based fintech GrailPay has raised $6.7 million in a Series A funding round, led by Construct Capital and joined by Commerce Ventures, Broadhaven Ventures, Soma Capital, Grasshopper Bank, and others. This investment will accelerate GrailPay’s mission to modernize the ACH payment network - the hidden backbone of U.S. commerce, which handles over $86 trillion annually but still relies on outdated, manual risk systems.

GrailPay delivers a robust data and intelligence platform designed specifically for bank payments, offering predictive analytics and real-time risk signals during account enrollment, transaction monitoring, and merchant underwriting. Trusted by over 10,000 businesses, GrailPay enables faster, safer, and more reliable ACH payments.

Why Bank Payments Deserve Innovation

While credit cards have benefited from decades of innovation in fraud detection, machine-learning risk engines, and analytics, bank transfers have largely remained stuck in the past. GrailPay’s CEO Will Messina summarizes it clearly: “Credit cards have seen decades of innovation, but the same hasn’t happened for bank payments. We’re building the modern intelligence layer to unlock the next growth wave of payments tied to a bank account.”

Today, ACH networks face high failure rates, return costs, and operational inefficiencies. GrailPay bridges this gap by integrating intelligence before transactions occur, reducing failed payments, accelerating decision-making, and automating investigations for payment platforms, fintechs, lenders, and software vendors.

Build on What Matters

GrailPay’s evolution from transaction processor to trust platform reveals a key founding lesson: build on what matters, not just what’s visible. They began with ACH processing - understanding deeply how money moves - and then layered risk intelligence on top. By mastering the financial plumbing first, GrailPay created an asset so foundational that others can build on top of it. For founders, this underscores a vital insight: don’t focus solely on surface-level improvements; own the flows that power your product. This deeper control becomes your ultimate moat and defensibility in crowded markets.

How GrailPay’s Platform Works

GrailPay provides modular offerings: clients can use just the intelligence layer or opt for a fully integrated ACH processing solution. The platform validates bank accounts with minimal data (routing and account numbers), applies AI-driven risk scoring, and guarantees settlement. Its flexible structure has allowed rapid adoption by thousands of companies that rely on bank payments.

Construct Capital’s Camila Saruhashi emphasizes that GrailPay is building exactly what every modern payments company needs: a flexible, intelligent risk layer designed for bank payments. The strong early traction highlights how overdue this innovation has been.

A True Infrastructure Play

GrailPay’s model is an infrastructure-first approach rather than a consumer-facing product. By delivering backend trust APIs and risk scoring across key payment moments - enrollment, underwriting, and settlement - the company empowers faster innovation and more reliable operations across fintech, B2B, and embedded finance sectors.

This positions GrailPay perfectly for the future of faster rails like RTP, FedNow, and Same-Day ACH. It is quietly moving billions, invisible to consumers, yet critical to enabling seamless and instant commerce.

What the Funding Will Enable

The $6.7 million Series A funding will support GrailPay in several strategic areas:

• Scaling its product and engineering teams to further enhance AI intelligence and risk modeling capabilities
  
• Expanding go-to-market operations to onboard more fintech platforms and technology partners
  
• Launching advanced risk tools designed to detect and prevent sophisticated fraud schemes and operational failures
  

With this capital, GrailPay aims to accelerate work on real-time underwriting, account flagging, and advanced self-service dashboards for customers. These improvements are critical as more businesses demand faster and safer payments that can scale globally.

Leadership with Deep Payments Expertise

GrailPay CEO Will Messina founded the company out of a deep understanding of the challenges facing ACH transactions. By embedding directly into payment flows and capturing granular data, GrailPay evolved from a simple processing tool into a robust intelligence hub. This DNA - mastering back-end workflows before layering on features - gives GrailPay a unique technical advantage and tight alignment with partner needs. According to Messina, the company is not just building another payments product; it is building a trust business at the core of financial infrastructure.

Why This Matters for the Future of Fintech

The modernization of the ACH network is becoming a crucial frontier in financial services. As faster payment rails continue to expand, the ability to validate counterparties and assess risk before settlement will define which platforms lead the next wave of innovation. GrailPay is laying the foundation for a secure, intelligent, and scalable bank payment ecosystem that can power everything from large B2B transactions to high-frequency consumer payments.

This is not just about incremental improvements - it is about closing a major structural gap in the financial plumbing. By solving deep operational challenges and becoming the unseen infrastructure behind trust and reliability, GrailPay is positioning itself for long-term, sustainable growth.