The world of business-to-business commerce is built on a fundamental inefficiency: goods are delivered, but payment comes later, often much later. This gap is managed by accounts receivable teams, a domain that has stubbornly resisted true automation, remaining a manual slog of emails, spreadsheets, and follow-up calls. A new startup, Lunos AI, launched today to tackle this problem not with another dashboard, but with a workforce of AI receivable agents designed to manage the complex, human-centric conversations that define B2B payments.
Founded in 2024, Lunos AI is reframing the issue. “This isn’t a payments problem; it’s a communication and negotiation problem,” said founder and CEO Duncan Barrigan. The company’s platform deploys an AI worker that integrates with financial systems like QuickBooks and NetSuite, but its real intelligence lies in its ability to analyze customer interaction histories and conduct nuanced, two-way conversations with clients via email and Slack. This agent can answer questions, find new contacts, and reconcile payments with incomplete information, replicating the bespoke work of a human finance professional but at scale.
To fuel this vision, the company has launched with $5 million in pre-seed funding. According to the announcement, the round was co-led by General Catalyst and Cherry Ventures, with a roster of angel investors that includes finance executives from Eli Lilly, Deliveroo, and GoCardless. The capital is earmarked for enhancing the AI agents with more sophisticated features, including reconciliation, payment orchestration, and full-cycle cash flow optimization.
From Automation to Agentic Commerce
Lunos AI’s approach signals a broader shift in enterprise AI, moving beyond simple process automation toward autonomous, agentic systems. The goal isn't just to send automated reminders but to create a digital coworker that can reason, communicate, and negotiate. “When I worked in finance, I could only dream of a coworker that automated receivables, chased invoices and managed the admin,” noted Dinika Mahtani, a partner at Cherry Ventures. “With Lunos, that’s now a reality.”
The company’s long-term vision extends beyond individual company efficiencies. Lunos AI aims to build a network of AI agents that communicate directly with each other on behalf of businesses, creating a new, highly efficient protocol for agent-to-agent B2B commerce. By deploying AI receivable agents that can handle the intricate, conversational aspects of getting paid, Lunos is betting that it can finally optimize a corner of the economy that software has so far failed to truly disrupt.
