Mitchell Jones, a Yale graduate and founder of fintech startups Lendtable and Parable, has raised $5.8 million in seed funding for his latest venture: Lava, a digital wallet platform designed to simplify payments across AI-driven applications.
The company’s goal is to make it easier for autonomous agents—AI systems performing tasks on behalf of users—to transact without constant human approval. Lava allows users to preload credits into a single wallet that can be used across tools, merchants, and foundational models like GPT and Claude.
Instead of setting up multiple subscriptions or navigating fragmented billing systems, developers and end users can rely on Lava to handle usage-based payments in one place.
The funding round was led by Lerer Hippeau and included participation from Harlem Capital, Streamlined Ventures, and Westbound. Lava plans to use the investment to expand its team, continue product development, and grow its market reach.
Jones, who was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, said the idea for Lava emerged after running into repeated challenges while building and testing AI tools. His goal is to build a payments infrastructure optimized for the “agent-native economy”—a concept describing a future where software agents perform actions independently, including financial transactions.
As reported by TechCrunch, Lava is positioned to serve both early-stage builders and scaling AI companies looking for a more efficient way to manage usage-based billing and payments.
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