Aeropay

Aeropay is not trying to be another checkout button. Daniel Muller built it in 2017 out of Chicago with a sharper idea in mind: if money already lives in the bank, why keep dragging cards into the conversation like an expensive middleman that never leaves the party. That question turned into a company now positioning itself as America’s pay by bank network, a direct line between businesses and the accounts that actually fund them. In a startup ecosystem crowded with wrappers and workarounds, Aeropay is building closer to the source, where control, cost, and trust actually live.

The product reads like a system that decided to own the full moment. Aeropay enables account to account payments across consumer and business flows, letting users link a bank once and move clean from intent to settlement. Underneath sits Aerosync, its proprietary bank connectivity layer, paired with what investors describe as a smart bank transfer process designed for lower cost, tighter security, and faster outcomes than card rails. Compliance is not treated like a side quest. Geoffrey Scott, Chief Risk and Compliance Officer, anchors a framework built for regulated environments where mistakes are expensive and trust is oxygen. The result is a payment experience that feels simple on the surface and disciplined underneath, which is exactly where the startup ecosystem is heading as scrutiny rises and easy shortcuts disappear.

Momentum showed up in May 2024 when Aeropay closed a $20M Series B led by Group 11 with participation from Chicago Ventures and Continental Investment Partners. That capital did not arrive for vanity. It came with expectation. Josh Lockhart, CTO, stepped in to scale the platform, while Lolke Bijlsma, Head of Engineering, joined to tighten the link between product ambition and execution reality. The company has carved early ground in cannabis and gaming, sectors where compliance, payout speed, and reliability are not nice to have, they are survival traits. Partnerships like its work with Cross River signal a focus on real time money movement where user experience lives or dies in seconds, a dynamic more founders across the startup ecosystem are starting to understand at a visceral level.

The strategy is deliberate. Start where the pain is loudest, prove the model, then expand. Pay by bank is gaining traction as merchants look at fee structures and start asking harder questions about margins. Consumers are more comfortable linking accounts when the experience is fast and clear. Aeropay is meeting that moment with a network mindset, not a feature set, building connective tissue that gets stronger as usage compounds. That kind of thinking does not just win customers, it reshapes expectations across the startup ecosystem, where infrastructure players quietly dictate the ceiling for everyone else.

Inside the company, the tone leans toward builders who can operate in regulated environments without slowing down. Cross functional work is not a buzzword here. It is how product, engineering, and risk stay aligned while shipping systems that actually move money. If that kind of work sounds like your lane, Aeropay is hiring across product, engineering, and go to market.