Why Canapi is Investing in Geniez

Mainframes – Big, Scary, and Still Powering 70% of Fortune 500 Companies

Despite the rise of cloud computing, mainframes maintain their dominance of the business processes for the world's most critical industries, including banking, insurance, and healthcare.  

Indeed, financial institutions rely particularly heavily on mainframe systems, with the vast majority of global financial transactions and credit card processing rooted in IBM z/OS infrastructure. Estimates suggest that on a daily basis, trillions in commerce dollars flow through these mainframes, cementing the mainframe as the backbone of our financial infrastructure.  

But the World is Changing

The mainframe may not be going anywhere anytime soon, but Generative AI has rapidly emerged as a critical technology capable of significantly up-leveling financial data and massively improving associated analytics. And as banks, financial institutions, and enterprises across the board seek to do more with their data – whether to better understand and serve customers, create superior products, or improve overall efficiencies – leveraging GenAI clearly paves the path to the future. Enter Geniez.  

To date, legacy code and limited compatibility of mainframe systems have made it exceptionally difficult to introduce GenAI into these mission-critical environments. Geniez addresses this challenge head-on through its flagship product, the GenAI Gateway (G3): a secure, plug-and-play API platform designed specifically for mainframes.

To that end, we at Canapi Ventures are excited to announce our seed investment in Geniez, a category-defining GenAI infrastructure software company enabling banks and financial institutions to integrate advanced AI capabilities directly into their core mainframe applications—all with enterprise-grade security, compliance, and ease of deployment.

Why Geniez Stands Out

• First-Mover Advantage: Geniez is pioneering GenAI integration for mainframes, allowing banks to deploy LLM-powered workflows for transaction analysis, risk detection, regulatory reporting, and customer service automation.

• On-Premise Control & Compliance: The solution is deployed on-premises or in private cloud environments, enabling full data control and bespoke LLM selection, ensuring compliance and security by keeping customer data within existing infrastructure.

• Expert Founders & Proven Track Record: Geniez is led by Gil Peleg and Dan Shprung, the team behind Model9, acquired by BMC Software in 2023. Their deep mainframe and sales expertise is matched by a hands-on approach and strong credibility among global enterprises.

Strong Early Feedback

Feedback from banking and enterprise technology leaders has roundly confirmed that Geniez provides something previously inaccessible: real-time GenAI access to data trapped on mainframes. We believe this capability helps to unlock use cases ranging from fraud detection to compliance automation. With early proofs-of-concept underway, we are confident that Geniez is well-positioned to become the key unlock to bringing together GenAI with previously siloed mainframe data for banks and regulated enterprises globally.

Unlike replatforming or code-migration tools, Geniez is uniquely designed to work natively within existing mainframe environments, providing the security, compliance, and performance mainframe-reliant industries demand. While competitors focus on migration or refactoring, Geniez powers seamless, real-time GenAI operations directly on the mainframe. We believe this will become an indispensable layer in the enterprise software stack.

The Beginning of a Transformation

At Canapi Ventures, we seek bold founders who combine deep technical expertise with market-driven vision and scalability. Geniez embodies these traits and sits at the heart of a transformation that will define how banks and financial institutions harness AI for years to come. We’re honored to partner with Gil, Dan, and their team as they unlock the power of GenAI at the core of global finance.