Catalyst raises $30M seed led by Sequoia Capital for agents that run retail trading strategies

Sequoia Capital led the seed round, with Jump Trading, Peak XV Partners, Lux Capital, AntiFund, Coinbase and Premji Invest participating. Cofounders Justin Zheng, 25, who previously worked at Worldcoin, and Dylan Iskandar, 21, started the company in 2025. Catalyst's agents turn an investment idea written in plain language into a trading strategy. They choose instruments, reduce costs and execute when a chosen trigger event happens, and a human approves each action. The company says a pilot with power traders produced hundreds of millions of dollars in trading volume over a few weeks. Users are now being let in from a waitlist. For builders, consumer finance is a high-stakes test for autonomous agents: execution mistakes cost real money, and regulators watch retail trading closely. The founders say they are building personalized risk education so the product does not become a gambling app. Holding to that as access widens will be a key test.