Maximum

Fintech · Banking Infrastructure · AI

Funding

Maximum raises $30M seed led by CRV to replace legacy bank core systems

Fiserv, Jack Henry and FIS still run the back-end plumbing for most U.S. banks, a concentration few startups have managed to break.

• Maximum emerged from stealth on Aug. 3, 2026 with a $30 million seed round led by CRV, one of the largest seed financings in fintech history.
• Founder Randy Fernando is a repeat fintech entrepreneur who sold Vault to Acorns in 2017 and sold Power to Marqeta in 2023 for $275 million in cash.
• Maximum's platform embeds AI at the foundational level of a bank's operating system, letting banks build custom agents to automate workflows, monitor customer activity in real time, and launch new products.
• 76% of banks surveyed by the ABA run core systems from Fiserv, Jack Henry or FIS, with Fiserv alone holding contracts at 42% of those banks.
• More than 70% of nearly 5,000 U.S. banks still run core technology built last century, before mobile banking, real-time payments or AI existed.
• Incumbents Fiserv and FIS are bolting AI agents onto existing systems, and Jack Henry has partnered with Google AI, while Maximum bets a rebuild from scratch will outpace incremental AI add-ons.
• Bank core software has resisted disruption for decades because switching costs are enormous, so a well-funded challenger betting on AI-native architecture tests whether that lock-in can finally break.