Ripple, Franklin Templeton join $5 million seed round for AI agent trust startup t54 Labs

t54 Labs, a San Francisco-based startup building what it describes as a “trust layer” for agentic finance, has raised $5 million in a seed funding round.

The round was co-led by Anagram and PL Capital and Franklin Templeton, with participation from Ripple, Virtuals Ventures, Blockchain Coinvestors, and ABCDE, t54 said Wednesday. This marks the startup’s first funding round, founder Chandler Fang told The Block. He declined to disclose when fundraising began, when it closed, the structure of the round, or the valuation. No investors took board, advisory, or observer seats, Fang said.

Founded in January 2025, t54 is building identity, verification, and compliance tools for AI agents that can transact independently on behalf of people and businesses.

“As agents gain the ability to initiate payments and execute transactions autonomously, there’s no standardized way to verify who they are, assess their risk, or ensure accountability when things go wrong,” Fang said.

What is t54 Labs?

t54’s platform has four main components. First is identity verification, which the company calls “know your agent.” Second is a “real-time” risk system that flags suspicious activity before funds move. Third is credit, with plans to offer credit lines to AI agents based on verified identity, risk scores, and transaction history. Finally, the platform combines identity, risk controls, and settlement into a single system so businesses can manage autonomous agents without adding operational complexity.

“We’re not just verifying agents, we’re building the full trust stack that lets businesses and consumers confidently hand real financial operations to autonomous AI agents,” Fang said.

Blockchain plays a role in t54’s infrastructure, though the platform does not position itself strictly as a crypto firm.

“Blockchain serves as a settlement and accountability layer,” Fang said. “AI agents need programmable, real-time, auditable financial rails, and blockchain is uniquely suited for that.”

The infrastructure is rail-agnostic and can operate across multiple payment systems. t54 is currently live on several blockchain networks, including the XRP Ledger, Solana, and Base. It has also developed x402-secure, an open-source trust layer built for the Coinbase-incubated x402 agent payment protocol.

Last month, t54 also announced a collaboration with Evernorth, a Ripple-backed digital asset treasury company that aims to raise more than $1 billion for institutional XRP holdings. Under the partnership, Evernorth intends to integrate t54’s agentic finance infrastructure into its autonomous treasury operations on the XRP Ledger.

“As institutions embrace tokenization and autonomous systems, the infrastructure layer must evolve to match. t54 is building the trust and verification framework that institutional finance will require as AI agents become participants in financial markets,” Tony Pecore, senior vice president and director of digital asset management at Franklin Templeton, said in a statement.

t54 currently employs 12 people and plans to hire two additional full-time engineers and one developer relations or business development hire as it expands development and institutional partnerships, Fang said.

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