MidLyr, an AI platform that helps financial institutions better manage risk and daily operations, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by Silicon Badia, with support from Wedbush Ventures, Hustle Fund, DCG, and Story Ventures.
MidLyr is creating a modern system to help banks and fintech companies work more efficiently. It’s designed to be strong, flexible, and fully compliant with regulations. Today, many financial institutions still rely on slow, manual processes, even though they handle millions of customers and billions of dollars.
MidLyr solves this problem by using AI that follows each bank’s rules, policies, and data. This allows teams to safely automate complex tasks—like solving issues or reviewing marketing materials—while staying fully compliant. With MidLyr, banks can easily connect their internal data and turn written policies into smart, automated actions they can trust.
“Banking is one of the largest sectors in the economy, and 60-70% of its revenue is spent just keeping operations running,” said Wael Elsahhar, Egyptian-born CEO and Co-Founder of MidLyr. “Despite this, there are still no fit-for-purpose tools for the people actually running those operations. Most solutions are either generic or naive about the nuance and complexity of bank environments. MidLyr’s mission is to give bank operators the intelligent, compliant tools they deserve—so they can serve customers better and reduce risk.”
“We invested in MidLyr because they’re not just adding AI to banking—they’re re-architecting how banks run,” said Namek Zu’bi, Founder & Managing Partner at Silicon Badia, an experienced fintech investor in companies like Novo, Petal, and Wurthy with a cumulative portfolio value of over $40BN. “Their approach combines technical depth with a deep understanding of financial operations, and that’s what it takes to build enduring infrastructure in this space. Wael and Ruochen have the experience and credibility to cut through the AI-hype and deliver products that bank leaders can trust”
MidLyr was founded by Wael Elsahhar and Ruochen Ren, who earlier built the core banking system at Imprint, a well-known U.S. credit card company. Their experience in developing and scaling secure financial systems led them to start MidLyr.
Wael has over 10 years of experience in fintech. He has worked as CTO and CPO at Imprint, Global Head of Product and Operations at Amazon Pay, and as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, advising banks and regulators. Ruochen led platform engineering at Imprint and has also worked at Grab and Amazon, focusing on improving operations and building customer experiences.
With this new funding, MidLyr will accelerate product development and deepen partnerships with design-partner banks and fintechs. MidLyr is currently hiring across Engineering, Data Science, Design, and Compliance Product roles. “We are excited about building a team across the US and the Middle East. We are betting on the depth of talent in engineering and data science in the region as a core long-term differentiator,” commented Elsahhar.
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