Sequoia Bets $30M That AI Can Make Trading Less Like a Casino

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Two founders who met over a poker table now want to make retail trading feel less like gambling. Catalyst, a startup building AI agents for everyday investors, has raised a $30 million seed round led by Sequoia Capital. Jump Trading, PeakXV, Lux Capital, AntiFund, Coinbase and Premji Invest also took part.

From a poker game to a pitch

Justin Zheng, 25, got into Ethereum in middle school, built a biometrics startup backed by Village Global while still in high school and joined Worldcoin in 2019. Dylan Iskandar, 21, was a cybersecurity prodigy who published papers for the U.S. Department of Defense as a teenager. The two met in 2019 at a poker game during a conference run by economist Tyler Cowen, stayed in touch and started Catalyst together in 2025. Few investors would describe poker as a board meeting, but it seems to have worked here.

The product lets users describe a trading goal in plain language. The agents turn it into a strategy and carry it out, with a human approving every step. Sequoia's George Robson says the agents help traders test an existing thesis, find suitable instruments, cut costs and execute at the right moment, calling them “a suit of armor as you navigate the financial world.”

Not a casino, apparently

The founders are careful about tone. “We're not here to build a casino,” Zheng said, while also asking whether investing safely can be just as fun as sports gambling. Iskandar frames the mission differently: “A farmer shouldn't need a hedge fund to be able to hedge.”

A pilot aimed at power traders reportedly generated hundreds of millions in trading volume over a couple of weeks. Catalyst is now letting people in from its waitlist, with wider availability expected over time. Next come education tools that explain risks in personalized terms, and the longer-term goal is retail trading for everyone, not just the power users.