Payments firm Primer raises $100M in Series C to build AI infra for global payments
The company said the fresh capital will be used to accelerate development of its AI-powered payments products and expand aggressively in the US market, which it expects will contribute more than a third of overall revenue by 2028.
Payments infrastructure startup Primer has raised $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Sofina, as the company bets that artificial intelligence will fundamentally reshape how enterprises manage payments and financial operations.
The round also saw participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors including Accel, Tencent, ICONIQ Capital, Balderton Capital, and Speedinvest.
The company said the fresh capital will be used to accelerate development of its AI-powered payments products and expand aggressively in the US market, which it expects will contribute more than a third of overall revenue by 2028.
Founded in 2020 by former executives from PayPal and Braintree, Primer positions itself as a unified infrastructure layer for enterprise payments, helping merchants consolidate fragmented payment processors, fraud tools and acquiring systems into a single platform.
The funding comes amid growing interest among enterprises in applying AI to finance and payments workflows, a shift Primer argues is constrained by fragmented transaction data spread across multiple systems.
“AI is only as good as the data it runs on,” Gabriel Le Roux, co-founder and CEO of Primer, said in a statement. “When you deploy agents across fragmented data, they don’t just underperform, they make the wrong decision.”
Primer said its platform captures more than 400 data points per transaction and manages over 95% of customer payment volume on average, giving merchants a consolidated view of payment flows across checkout, fraud prevention and payouts.
The company processes billions of transactions annually for customers including GetYourGuide, Dialpad and Printful.
As part of its AI push, Primer plans to expand capabilities of its proprietary AI agent, Primer Companion, launched last year. The company said the tool currently helps merchants analyse payment data and identify operational issues, but will increasingly evolve toward autonomous execution of payment optimisation tasks.
The company is also doubling down on the US, which now accounts for roughly one-fifth of its revenue, with annual recurring revenue in the region doubling year-on-year. Primer plans to hire up to 50 employees in the US to support expansion.
Jean-François Burguet, head of digital at Sofina, said the payments industry was approaching a “structural turning point” as merchants consolidate onto unified infrastructure and AI becomes central to transaction decision-making.
Peak XV’s principal Aakash Kapoor said Primer’s ability to manage nearly all payment volume for clients gives it the depth of context required for AI agents to operate effectively across complex payment ecosystems.