Expertise01
Expertise, multiplied.
Years of real payments tactics, benchmarks, and operating playbooks become a compounding system. Every engagement makes the next one sharper.
Source / practitioner judgment
Our Mission
Our mission is to enact positive market change for embedded payments through clarity.
Built In The Work
Utopaya became Straata because the work grew beyond advisory.
The benchmark library and operating playbooks built across 100+ payments engagements now work alongside proprietary technology, with one operator-led team accountable from finding through execution.
Platforms We Have Worked With
Our Evolution
Five years of work made Straata possible.
Utopaya began in 2021 to help software platforms turn embedded payments into results. More than 100 engagements later, its benchmarks, operating playbooks, and practitioner judgment had become a system. The rise of AI gave that system a new speed and scale.
What It Means
What is an AI-native service?
Expertise, multiplied by AI, delivered through an invisible platform. An AI-native service makes work that used to be too slow, too expensive, or practically impossible feel simple, while the client receives the result instead of another tool.
AI Leverage02
The once-impossible, made easy.
AI applies that expertise across every contract, statement, transaction, and scenario, turning work that once required a team, years, or a hire into an outcome delivered at practical speed and scale.
Multiplier / AI doing the work
Invisible Platform03
Powered by an invisible platform.
Our software works behind our operators, not in front of you. You work with the team and receive the completed result without another platform to learn or run.
Product / the completed outcome
The Record
Numbers that speak for themselves.
The work began long before the name Straata. Each engagement added another set of contract terms, processor formats, and real operating decisions to the practice.
01 / Focus
5+
Years focused on this exact problem
02 / Work
100+
Payments engagements completed
03 / Scale
$100B+
Annual GMV analyzed
04 / Coverage
20+
Processor formats normalized
How We Work
Independent by design. Exact by habit.
We are paid by clients and nobody else. Every finding keeps its source. The same team that surfaces the opportunity stays close enough to see it through.
Operating ModelTrace / 01
Evidence in. Outcome owned.
01Source evidenceFiles attached
02Normalize economicsOne P&L
03Operator decisionHuman owned
04Execute and measureResult tracked
Independent01
No referral fees. No vendor kickbacks.
No processor revenue share. We are paid by clients, so the recommendation serves one side of the table.
Evidence02
Every figure traces back to a source.
Residuals, contracts, transactions, and statements become one reviewable money trail.
Discretion03
Client economics stay client economics.
We tell results by mechanism and vertical, never by client name.
Ownership04
The team that finds it stays to finish it.
Advice is only useful when someone remains accountable for what happens next.
Clarity should lead to action. Every figure traces back to a source. Every recommendation serves the client. And the team that finds the opportunity stays accountable for what happens next.
Team
The people accountable for your outcome.
Payments operators and builders who have sat on the processor, platform, and product sides of the table.
Brian Abernethy
Founder & CEO
Brian founded the practice in 2021 after leading ISV partnerships at TSYS, Global Payments, and Clearent. He has helped stand up 100+ integrated payments partnerships and was named to ETA’s 2023 Forty Under 40.
Rebecca Walther
SVP & Practice Lead, Embedded Payments
Rebecca has spent more than a decade across payments and fintech. She led ISV and MSP channels at Clearent, then managed multimillion-dollar portfolios and ERP payment integrations at CardConnect.
Zac Brooks
Partner, Technology
Zac leads the technology behind Straata. He founded Turbo Labs, whose product model keeps design, engineering, and operations on one team, and built the original Straata MVP with Brian.
AdvisorsFive perspectives, one standard
Roberto Munoz
Strategic Advisor
Matt Morrow
Strategic Advisor
Zach Lynn
Strategic Advisor
Mark Passifione
Strategic Advisor
Ari Tandler
Strategic Advisor
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