Flex secures $70 million from Ryan Smith’s Halo fund to expand its AI private banking services globally.

      Six months ago, Flex secured $60 million, labeling it as a Series B round. On Tuesday, the company announced it had raised an additional $70 million, opting for a Series B1 designation instead of progressing through the alphabet.

      This funding round was led by Halo, the investment firm established last year by Qualtrics founder Ryan Smith, who also owns the NBA's Utah Jazz and the NHL's Utah Mammoth. He was joined by his long-time investor, Ryan Sweeney, a general partner at Accel. Other participants included Portage, Wellington, Crosslink Capital, 53 Stations, Titanium Ventures, Spice, and Florida Funders.

      According to Flex, this funding increases its total equity raised to $180 million, alongside $300 million in debt. The current employee count is 110, with expectations to exceed 200 by year-end.

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      Flex’s market approach is quite focused, and according to the company, relatively unaddressed. It offers what it describes as an AI-native private banking service for high-net-worth business owners in the middle market—individuals who simultaneously act as both a company’s finance department and its wealthiest customer.

      “Business owners in the middle market are among the most significant yet underserved clients in global finance,” stated Zaid Rahman, Flex’s founder and CEO.

      He highlighted that these clients often deal with vendors from the U.S., Poland, and Brazil, requiring multiple service providers and incurring various fees just to transact internationally. Flex estimates that approximately 350,000 such owners exist in the U.S., accounting for around 40% of private-sector payroll, while the global tally is about 3 million.

      These figures illustrate that these owners deal with multiple entities, currencies, and jurisdictions, regardless of their intentions.

      What does Flex Global actually offer?

      The recently launched product extends the platform beyond the U.S. borders. Flex Global provides stablecoin payment systems in over 100 countries, multi-currency accounts in 76 countries covering 32 currencies, institutional dollar accounts for foreign owners, private credit solutions in more than 20 countries, and cards issued across various entities and geographical locations on a single platform.

      According to the company, cross-border payments settle within minutes instead of days. The stablecoin feature is designed to remain unnoticed: a business owner making a payment to a supplier in Warsaw does so exactly as they would for one in Dallas, without engaging with a digital wallet.

      This strategy relies on recently operationalized infrastructure. In April, Visa's settlement pilot achieved a $7 billion annualized run rate, reflecting a 50% increase over the previous quarter. Research by Artemis and McKinsey indicated that genuine stablecoin payment volume roughly doubled in 2025, reaching about $390 billion, primarily in business-to-business transactions.

      Established financial institutions began recognizing this shift around the same time. Mastercard's $1.8 billion acquisition of BVNK was a clear indication that the technology had progressed from pilot phases to foundational operations, while banks continue to publicly debate which AI advancements will shape the future.

      Flex claims its annualized payment volume has surpassed $10 billion, growing approximately fourfold year-over-year with a nine-figure revenue run rate, as revenue has increased threefold since December. The primary customer categories by the number of logos include construction, wholesale, and multinational companies.

      Smith, who joined as a strategic investor, expressed the gap in familiar terms. “Throughout my career, I’ve focused on empowering entrepreneurs, all of whom share the same challenge: their business and personal finances are completely intertwined, yet each bank treats them as two separate clients,” he said.

      Beyond financial investment, Halo brings distribution capabilities, its influence extending across the NBA, NHL, and Formula 1. This may seem an unusual sales channel for a banking service, but it recognizes that Flex’s clientele was never part of Silicon Valley’s typical network.

      The platform already integrates a variety of services, including credit, banking, payment processing, bill pay, expense management, treasury services, and finance agents like Beacon AI, into what Flex refers to as an agentic back office.

      This positions it alongside emerging agentic banking platforms designed for software to facilitate transactions rather than individuals. Looking ahead, the roadmap includes personal credit and rewards cards, treasury services, travel arrangements, and mortgages. Whether a mid-sized construction firm owner would prefer their bank to manage flight bookings is a question that the next funding round will likely address.