Kastle raises USD $24 million to target bank lending

Kastle has raised USD $24 million in Series A funding, led by Insight Partners.

Existing investors Y Combinator and Commerce Ventures also participated. New investors include Fifth Wall and a group of founders and financial services executives.

The San Francisco-based company sells an AI platform for financial institutions, starting with consumer lending. Its software is designed to work across banks' existing core systems rather than requiring lenders to replace older infrastructure.

Kastle said its AI agents have processed more than USD $1.8 billion in transactions, although a later company description put the figure at more than USD $2 billion. It added that it already works with some of the largest banks and enterprises.

Focus on lending

Consumer lending has become Kastle's initial market because banks and lenders still handle large volumes of operational work through a mix of legacy technology, manual steps, and specialist teams. Those workflows often involve strict service, risk, and regulatory requirements, making them a difficult proving ground for AI tools.

Kastle argues that many large financial institutions face a choice between expensive technology replacement programmes and lighter AI tools that do not do enough of the work. Its approach is to place specialised AI agents into existing operating environments so they can complete repeatable tasks and keep systems of record updated.

The company describes this model as a hybrid workforce, in which AI agents take on high-volume tasks while staff focus on cases that need judgement, expertise, and customer interaction. The pitch reflects a broader shift in banking, as firms move from small AI trials towards more direct use in operations.

In a statement, Rishi Choudhary outlined the company's view of how banks can adopt AI.

"For years, enterprises have effectively been presented with a false choice: accept the limitations of legacy operations or endure a long and risky replacement of the systems at the heart of their business," said Rishi Choudhary, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kastle.

"Kastle creates a third path. We give financial institutions an AI workforce that can operate across the systems they already have, so they can capture the benefits of AI now-not five years from now. We believe this will become the safest and fastest way for the world's largest institutions to become AI-native," Choudhary said.

Investor view

Insight Partners framed the investment around the need for banks to use AI in ways that fit regulatory and operational demands. In its view, lenders want tools that can complete work reliably rather than add another software layer for staff to manage.

"Financial institutions do not need another layer of software that creates more work for their teams. They need AI that can reliably complete the work while ensuring compliance," said Rebecca Liu-Doyle, Managing Director of Insight Partners.

"Kastle deploys AI agents that can navigate complexity, pass the bar on regulatory rigor, and get high-stakes work done without waiting for a multiyear transformation. We're thrilled to partner with the Kastle team as they continue to reshape this category," Liu-Doyle said.

The new capital will be used to expand Kastle's engineering, product, and go-to-market teams, and to support more deployments with banks and other financial institutions in North America.

The funding round comes as AI investment in financial services continues to shift from experimental tools towards systems tied to revenue, underwriting, servicing, and compliance processes. For lenders, the appeal lies in reducing manual workloads without the cost and disruption of replacing long-established core platforms.

That opportunity also brings scrutiny. Any system used in lending operations must work within tightly controlled processes, maintain records accurately, and meet internal and external standards. Kastle's strategy rests on the argument that AI agents can be inserted into those environments and trusted with routine but consequential work.

Choudhary linked that view to a broader change in how companies organise work.

"Software gave every employee more tools. AI will give every enterprise more capacity," Choudhary said.

"The winning institutions will be built around hybrid teams that combine the scale and consistency of AI agents with the judgment and relationships of exceptional people. Kastle is building the platform that makes that future possible," Choudhary said.