Baselayer Raises $35M Series A to Extend AI Business Verification Into Agentic Identity
Summary
- • AI fraud-detection startup Baselayer raises $35M Series A led by M13; ~$40M total raised
- • 2,000+ US financial institutions (~20% of market) use its platform; $1B+ in fraud prevented
- • Launches Agentic Identity Suite with 'Know Your Agent' (KYA) to verify AI agent credentials
- • Reaches eight-figure revenue in under two years; 50 employees across SF and New York offices
Details
$35M Series A raised, ~$40M total since Feb 2023 founding
M13 led the round; Picus Capital, Torch Capital, Afore Capital, and Socure's Matt Thompson participated. Valuation not disclosed.
2,000+ US financial institutions (20%+) use Baselayer's fraud platform
Institutions use the platform to onboard, underwrite, and open accounts for merchants and businesses.
Baselayer claims $1B+ in customer fraud losses prevented since founding
Cumulative figure since the company's 2023 founding; processes tens of millions of applications annually.
Eight-figure annual revenue milestone reached in under two years
CEO Jonathan Awad confirmed the revenue milestone but declined to share exact figures or valuation.
Agentic Identity Suite launched alongside the Series A funding round
Extends Baselayer's identity network from businesses to AI agents transacting on their behalf.
'Know Your Agent' (KYA): credential system for verifying AI agents in financial transactions
Determines who deployed an agent, who it represents, and whether it is authorized for a specific task. Agents receive verifiable credentials to present to merchants or financial institutions.
AI agents pose new identity risk: ephemeral agents lack transaction history for risk scoring
CEO Awad: 'Agents spin up and they spin down. How can you trust this random one-task agent?' Banks and platforms have no history to evaluate legitimacy.
Baselayer acts as both identity network and fraud consortium across its institution base
Because it serves thousands of institutions, it can detect when the same person or business applies at multiple institutions and incorporate cross-institution signals into risk scoring.
Founded Feb 2023 by Jonathan Awad and Timothy Hyde; ~50 employees in SF and New York
Sells directly and through reseller/white-label software partners. Initially focused on KYB (Know Your Business) identity verification, fraud detection, and risk management.
Source: Crunchbase News (September 22, 2026)
What This Means
Baselayer's raise and simultaneous 'Know Your Agent' product launch signals that agentic identity verification is becoming a critical infrastructure need for financial services. As AI agents increasingly transact autonomously on behalf of businesses, the verification problem grows more complex than traditional KYC or KYB — agents are ephemeral, with no credit history or stable identity. Baselayer's position across 20%+ of US financial institutions gives it a unique network-effect advantage in building the trust and credential layer for AI agent transactions. This is an early indicator of a broader infrastructure buildout as agentic AI proliferates across commerce and finance.