Onsetto, a fintech platform focused on helping financial institutions win and activate business banking relationships, has raised $9 million in Seed II funding. The round was led by Canapi Ventures, with participation from existing investors EJF Ventures, Idea Fund of La Crosse, and The Perch Fund. The company aims to solve a critical issue in business banking: while banks have invested heavily in digital account opening, many newly opened business accounts never become the customer's primary operating account.
According to Onsetto, moving a commercial banking relationship is complex. Businesses must update payroll providers, accounts receivable systems, vendor platforms, and internal workflows across dozens of disconnected systems. This process can take months and often results in incomplete transitions, preventing financial institutions from fully capturing the relationship. Onsetto addresses this through a model called structured activation, which uses AI-guided workflows to coordinate the transition of payroll, receivables, payables, and operating activity into a new financial institution at the moment of onboarding.
“Business banking growth is not determined by accounts opened. It is determined by how quickly operating activity moves,” said Cale Johnston, Founder and CEO of Onsetto. “Onsetto removes the friction from switching, giving banks a clear and structured way to help businesses transition and begin operating from their new account with confidence.” The platform leverages AI-driven workflow automation to coordinate tasks that previously required significant manual effort, reducing timelines and increasing the likelihood that a new account becomes primary.
Neil Underwood, Co-Founder and General Partner at Canapi Ventures, commented: “At Canapi, we work closely with financial institutions and see firsthand how difficult it is to capture the primary operating relationship. Banks have built strong systems to acquire accounts, but they have not built the infrastructure required to activate them. Onsetto addresses this gap directly, and we believe their approach will become an important part of how banks compete for and grow business relationships.”
Onsetto is led by Johnston, who previously founded ClickSWITCH, a consumer account switching platform that scaled to hundreds of financial institutions before being acquired by Q2 Holdings. With Onsetto, he applies that experience to commercial banking, where activation and primacy determine long-term success. The new funding will expand platform capabilities, grow the team, and accelerate adoption among financial institutions nationwide. The platform is designed to be fast to implement and does not require core or digital banking integration. More information is available at www.onsetto.com.
