Baselayer raises $35 million to expand AI identity verification for financial institutions

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Baselayer raises $35M for AI ID

Highlights

Baselayer raised $35 million in a Series A led by M13, bringing total funding to about $40 million since its 2023 founding.
Baselayer launched its Agentic Identity Suite, expanding verification from businesses to AI agents with a Know Your Agent (KYA) service.
Baselayer targets fraud and payment risks by working with FIS, Prove, Socure and others, but estimates financial-institution partnerships require 12–18 months and merchant adoption up to 24 months.

Funding backs launch of agent identity product

As first reported by Crunchbase News, M13 is leading Baselayer’s $35 million Series A round, with participation from Picus Capital, Torch Capital, Afore Capital and Matt Thompson of Socure. Chief executive and co-founder Jonathan Awad says the financing brings the company’s total funding to about $40 million since its 2023 founding, while Baselayer is not disclosing its valuation.

Baselayer sells technology that combines business identity, credit and fraud data to help banks, fintech groups and other financial-services providers evaluate prospective customers. Its platform has focused on Know Your Business verification, fraud detection and risk management, and the company says more than 2,000 financial institutions in the U.S. use its tools for onboarding, underwriting and account opening for merchants.

Alongside the funding, Baselayer is announcing its Agentic Identity Suite, which is designed to extend its identity network from businesses to AI agents acting on their behalf. The company is developing what it calls Know Your Agent, or KYA, to determine who deployed an agent, whom it represents and whether it has permission to complete a specific task.

Adoption push targets wider fraud and payments risks

Baselayer says the rise of AI agents is creating a new trust problem because software can appear briefly, act autonomously and leave little transaction history for banks or merchants to assess. Awad says that, without a reliable way to prove authority, legitimate agents risk being blocked as suspected bots, while bad actors can use the same automation to accelerate fraud attempts.

The startup wants authorized agents to carry credentials that merchants, financial institutions and online platforms can check before allowing a purchase or other interaction to proceed. Baselayer says it is working with agent developers, payment processors, merchants and fraud-detection providers including FIS, Prove and Socure to issue and recognize those credentials.

M13 managing partner Karl Alomar says Baselayer’s identity data, financial-institution relationships and existing network could give it an advantage as the market searches for standards. The company says wider rollout may still take time because financial-institution partnerships typically take 12 to 18 months to establish and large merchant relationships can take up to 24 months, though Baselayer sees future applications beyond payments, including cryptocurrency transactions and smart contracts.

In our earlier article, we covered how major banks are calling for faster safeguards as AI shopping agents become more common in e-commerce. They warned that agent-led transactions could heighten fraud, scams, and data-privacy risks, and urged clearer disclosure, stronger data protections, and interoperability standards to clarify responsibility when something goes wrong.

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