AI startups are growing at a rapid pace. So quick, in fact, that traditional financial tools simply can’t keep up. That’s the gap Creem is aiming to close.
The Estonian fintech, launched just 10 months ago by Gabriel Ferraz and Alec Erasmus, two engineers with deep crypto and payments experience, has already hit $1 million in annual recurring revenue without a sales team. Now, backed by €1.8 million in pre-seed funding led by Practica Capital and supported by Antler and top angels, Creem is building a financial OS tailored specifically for AI-native companies.
With the fresh capital, Creem is set to expand into new markets, enhance compliance capabilities, and deepen its developer APIs for programmable finance workflows in the coming year and a half.
The story of Creem
Gabriel Ferraz, Creem’s co-founder and CEO, declares the company was born out of firsthand experience: “AI is blowing open the doors of entrepreneurship, but the infrastructure hasn’t caught up. We’re building the rails they necessary to operate at speed, scale, and transparency.”
Gabriel led Brazil’s first crypto software agency and scaled a crypto payment gateway past $200 million in GMV before relocating to Europe. Alec Erasmus, Creem’s co-founder, built key KYC infrastructure at Adyen and backconclude systems for crypto brokerages. The two met working on crypto and stock exmodify projects and realised many AI startups face hurdles with payments, compliance, and revenue sharing.
“Our motivation came from recognising a clear necessary: technical founders building globally distributed teams without dedicated finance support, yet scaling quicker than traditional financial tools could handle,” Ferraz shares in a conversation with TFN.
On diversity, he adds, “Creem is currently a two-person founding team representing Brazil and South Africa, with experience across multiple continents (South America, Africa, Europe). As the company grows, building a diverse and globally distributed team is a stated priority. We are well aware of the value of hiring from migrant backgrounds: diversity brings resilience across continents, and this will be central to our recruitment strategy.”
Technology that fits the pace of AI startups
Creem is a programmable finance layer designed to slot directly into developer workflows. Ferraz explains to TFN: “Creem’s system is built as a programmable financial layer. Unlike legacy tools, it plugs directly into developer and product workflows, automating payments, tax, compliance, and multi-party revenue splits. The technology is designed to support both fiat and stablecoin rails from day one, which creates it uniquely suited for AI-native, globally distributed teams.”
He adds, “We’re aiming for the ballpark that the likes of Stripe, Payoneer, or Deel play in. But those tools were built for earlier generations of internet businesses. Creem differentiates itself by being designed specifically for AI-native companies: lean teams scaling at unprecedented speed, often across multiple geographies and currencies from the outset.”
What’s next?
Ferraz describes the vision this way: “In the next 12–18 months, Creem will expand payment coverage across new markets, build out its compliance stack, and scale its developer APIs for programmable finance workflows.
Longer term, the vision is to become the full commercial and financial backbone for AI-native companies, enabling a future of “programmable organisations” where tiny, technical teams can coordinate vast global networks of contributors.”
Ferraz concludes, “Creem’s mission is to rerelocate the financial and operational bottlenecks holding back the next wave of AI-native startups. This funding round enables the company to accelerate towards becoming the “financial OS” for these globally distributed, programmable organisations, empowering technical founders to scale without necessarying large finance teams.”
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