Why We Invested in Alacriti

Why We Invested in Alacriti

By: Sasank Chary, Andy Greos, & Ian Steren

Sageview is excited to lead a growth equity investment in Alacriti, partnering with co-founder and CEO Manish Gurukula and the Alacriti team as they help financial institutions and businesses modernize how money moves.

Alacriti provides a modular payments infrastructure platform to financial institutions and the businesses they serve. Its OrbiPay platform combines an infrastructure layer with central connectivity for multiple payment rails (including RTP, FedNow, ACH, wires, and more digital methods) with an application layer for related money movement experiences. Together, those capabilities help customers launch new payment products, improve end-user experience, and operate with greater control, all while integrating with existing core systems.

This investment sits at the intersection of two themes we have been tracking for some time. In our Surround and Squeeze thesis, we argued that banks and credit unions are increasingly adopting best-of-breed solutions around their core systems. In our Rise of Instant Payments work, we highlighted how real-time rails are turning payments from a back-office utility into a strategic battleground. Taken together, we believe Alacriti is positioned to deliver the modern payment infrastructure financial institutions need. We are deeply appreciative of the partnership with Manish and team as we begin this next chapter together.

Payments are becoming a battleground for customer primacy

Payments remain one of the most frequent and important ways customers experience their bank. And while delivering a reliable, user-friendly payments experience has always been critical to maintaining and growing deposits, expectations have changed. Consumers expect payments to feel instant and transparent. Businesses expect visibility, reconciliation, and control without manual workarounds. Software-led platforms have made embedded, intuitive money movement the new standard. Datos research shows that nearly 40% of corporate treasurers would switch primary banking relationships for better payment automation and visibility[1].

The need for a new payments operating layer

Banks and credit unions face a dual mandate: keep mission-critical payment infrastructure running while modernizing fast enough to meet changing client expectations.

But moving from a batch-based world to real-time is a multifaceted technical problem. It requires meaningful changes to systems and workflows, all while ISO 20022 messaging standards create additional complexity. Most institutions still operate with fragmented payment stacks built around separate rails and workflows. That fragmentation creates a poor end-user experience, and each patchwork upgrade makes each incremental improvement harder than the last. The result is a widening gap between what customers expect and what legacy infrastructure can support. It’s no surprise Datos research indicates that roughly 80% of financial institutions cite outdated infrastructure as the single biggest challenge to implementing new payment capabilities[2].

A path has emerged in the form of the “payments hub” — a common operating layer that gives financial institutions and businesses one way to orchestrate payment activity, manage risk, and present a consistent experience regardless of payment type.

Why Alacriti is the right company for this moment

We believe Alacriti’s OrbiPay platform gives financial institutions the modern operating layer for payments: a modular, cloud-native, core-independent infrastructure that can orchestrate activity across payment rails.

A payments hub reduces operational complexity, helping institutions modernize legacy payment infrastructure and support new rails over time. We do not assume there will be one winner-take-all settlement rail. RTP, FedNow, ACH, wires, card-based push payments, stablecoins, and tokenized deposits are likely to coexist. This only reinforces the importance of flexible settlement infrastructure. Furthermore, a modern, ISO-native hub allows financial institutions to unlock the value of richer payment data, supporting better reporting, reconciliation, fraud detection, and client experience.

The timing is compelling: 58% of banks indicate they expect to increase spending on payment orchestration and payment hub solutions over the coming investment cycle[3].

Alacriti also delivers industry specialization where it matters. Payment workflows are rarely one-size-fits-all. A credit union, insurer, treasury client, or receivables team each needs specific integrations, controls, and user experiences. Across invoicing, bill payment, loan payment, and receivables workflows, Alacriti helps financial institutions and the businesses they serve deliver modern, reliable experiences under their own brand.

The proof is in the footprint: Alacriti processes over 96 million transactions and $233 billion in annual volume. It is responsible for 7% of the aggregate instant payment volume on RTP and FedNow as of Q4 2025. Alacriti serves both banks and credit unions at meaningful scale, including 14 of the top 100 U.S. financial institutions and nearly a quarter of all U.S. credit unions over $1 billion in assets[4].

Looking ahead

Programmable money capabilities, including stablecoins and tokenized deposits, are coming to financial services and will create new opportunities for faster, more flexible money movement. With this investment, Alacriti is expanding the OrbiPay platform to support these capabilities.

At the same time, faster and more programmable payments raise the bar for intelligence, fraud prevention, and operational control. AI is coming for payments operations. A unified payments hub is positioned to be the centralized control plane for humans or agents, aggregating payment and fraud operations into a single data pipeline and workflow.

A team built for the complexity of payments

The company’s history matters in the pursuit of this vision. The Alacriti team has spent decades building in the messy middle of payments infrastructure, customer experience, and operations. The company has scaled without outside capital, developing products alongside its financial institution partners. We are convinced that this is a team with unusual domain depth, strong product instincts, and hard-earned credibility.

We believe Alacriti is helping define the next layer of payments infrastructure for financial institutions and look forward to working with the team to realize that vision.

Sources

[1] Datos Insights, Payment Hub Overview, September 2025.

[2] Datos Insights, Payment Hub Overview, September 2025.

[3] Datos Insights, Q3 2025 survey, as cited in Sageview market materials.

[4] Alacriti, “Alacriti Secures Growth Investment to Lead the Next Era of Money Movement.”  https://www.alacriti.com/news/alacriti-secures-growth-investment-to-lead-the-next-era-of-money-movement/