• US-based fintech MidLyr has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Silicon Badia, with participation from Wedbush Ventures, Hustle Fund, DCG, and Story Ventures.
• Founded in 2025 by Wael Elsahhar and Ruochen Ren, MidLyr enables banks to translate policy text into compliant AI workflows, connecting directly to internal data to automate processes such as issue resolution, risk reviews, and marketing compliance—all within regulatory boundaries.
• With the new funding, MidLyr will accelerate product development, expand its partnerships with banks and fintechs, and hire talent across the US and the Middle East, leveraging regional expertise in engineering and data science as a long-term differentiator.

Press release:

MidLyr, the AI infrastructure platform redefining how financial institutions manage risk and operations, has raised $2.5 million in pre-seed funding led by Silicon Badia, with participation from Wedbush Ventures, Hustle Fund, DCG, and Story Ventures.

MidLyr is building a new foundation for how banks and fintechs operate, one that is durable, compliant, and adaptive. Every process in a financial institution touches millions of customers and billions of dollars, and yet most are still governed by rigid workflows and manual controls. MidLyr brings intelligence and structure to this complexity by aligning AI agents directly with regulations, policies, and operational data, creating a new class of bank-grade automation that teams can trust. With MidLyr, banks can define policies like they always did —in text, connect to internal data, and safely automate complex processes—from issue resolution to marketing asset reviews—all within compliant boundaries.

“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”

Founded by Wael Elsahhar and Ruochen Ren, who previously built the core banking infrastructure at Imprint  - a leading US credit card issuer – MidLyr emerged from firsthand experience scaling regulated systems. Wael brings over a decade of fintech leadership, having served as CTO and CPO at Imprint, Global Head of Product and Operations at Amazon Pay, and strategy and operations consultant at McKinsey & Company advising leading banks and regulators. Ruochen led platform engineering at Imprint and previously worked on operations scaling at Grab and the core shopping experience at Amazon.

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.