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Payments startup Primer secures USD 100 mn to expand AI capabilities and US presence. The Series C funding round was led by Sofina with participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors including Accel, Balderton, ICONIQ, Tencent and Speedinvest. Primer a London-based payments infrastructure startup, has raised USD 100 million in a Series C funding round led by Sofina, with participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors including Accel, Balderton, ICONIQ, Tencent and Speedinvest. Founded in 2020 by Gabriel Le Roux and Paul Anthony, Primer offers a unified platform that enables businesses to manage payments, fraud, reconciliation and financial operations through a single interface. The company aims to solve a major industry challenge fragmented payment data across multiple systems which often limits the effectiveness of artificial intelligence. "In the next few years, every payment decision in a large business will be initiated, optimized or audited by AI. That shift is already underway," said Gabriel Le Roux, CEO and Co-founder of Primer. "The question is whether the data those systems run on is complete because when you deploy agents across fragmented data, they don't just underperform, they make the wrong decision. That's why the next era of payments can only be built on complete, contextual intelligence. And that's what Primer delivers." Primer's platform captures over 400 data points per transaction and provides businesses with a comprehensive view of payment flows. This unified data layer is intended to help companies make faster and more accurate decisions while improving performance. The new funding will be used to expand Primer's AI capabilities, particularly its AI agent, Primer Companion, which assists merchants in analysing payment data and generating insights. The company plans to further develop the tool so it can autonomously optimise payment processes within defined parameters. "We don't want merchants chasing problems or missing opportunities. With full context across every payment, Primer Companion can act on their behalf, knowing what's happening, why and what to do next," Le Roux added. Primer is also focusing on expanding its presence in the US, which currently contributes around one-fifth of its revenue. The company plans to grow this share to more than one-third by 2028 as it scales operations in the region. Submit your email address to receive the latest updates on news & host of opportunities

Primer, a London, UK-based financial technology company, raised $100M in Series C funding

Primer closes $100M round to bring AI to every payment. Last Updated: 20 May 2026 Co-founder of JustAINews Key Points * Primer raised $100 million in a Series C led by Sofina, with Peak XV Partners, Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest also participating in the oversubscribed round. * The London-founded payments infrastructure company plans to expand its AI agent and grow US revenue to over a third of total business by 2028. * Primer's platform processes billions of transactions annually, capturing over 400 data points per transaction across more than 95% of each merchant's payment volume. Credit: Primer Primer, a payments infrastructure company founded by former leaders of Braintree and PayPal, has raised $100 million in a Series C round. The funding will go toward building out its AI capabilities and expanding its presence in the United States. Primer was started in 2020 around one core belief: that payments infrastructure needed to be unified before it could be made intelligent. The timing reflects where the industry is heading. According to BCG research, agentic AI, meaning AI that can act and make decisions on its own, is projected to influence more than $1 trillion in e-commerce spending in the near future. Yet many payment systems still struggle to scale, held back by fragmented infrastructure, unclear value propositions, and a lack of supportive regulation in key markets. For merchants juggling multiple processors and fraud tools, the practical result is scattered data and blind spots. Those are precisely the conditions under which automated systems produce wrong answers. The round was led by Sofina, with participation from Peak XV Partners, formerly known as Sequoia Capital India & SEA. All of Primer's existing investors joined again, including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest. The round was oversubscribed. Total funding raised to date now stands at $170 million. Why fragmented payment data is a problem for AI Most large merchants do not route payments through one system. They rely on combinations of processors, acquirers, and fraud tools, each holding a piece of the picture. When AI runs on top of that setup, its decisions are only as good as the data it can see. Gaps in data become gaps in judgment, and at the scale of billions of transactions, those gaps produce systematic errors rather than isolated ones. Primer's platform covers the full payments lifecycle, from checkout to payout. It captures more than 400 data points per transaction and, on average, handles more than 95% of a merchant's total payment volume. Clients like GetYourGuide, Dialpad, and Printful use it to get a complete view of their payment flows rather than assembling reports from multiple disconnected sources. "In the next few years, every payment decision in a large business will be initiated, optimized or audited by AI. That shift is already underway. The question is whether the data those systems run on is complete because when you deploy agents across fragmented data, they don't just underperform, they make the wrong decision. That's why the next era of payments can only be built on complete, contextual intelligence. And that's what Primer delivers." Gabriel Le Roux, CEO and co-founder of Primer How Primer plans to use the $100 million A large share of the capital will go toward Primer Companion, the company's AI agent, which was released in 2025. Companion currently helps merchants handle complex payment queries and identify patterns across their transaction data. Primer now plans to extend its capabilities so it can run experiments, optimize payment performance, and take actions on its own within boundaries the merchant defines. The shift, as the company describes it, is from a tool that surfaces information to one that acts on it. The US expansion is the other main focus. American revenue currently accounts for around a fifth of the business, with annual recurring revenue doubling year on year. Primer wants that figure to exceed a third of total revenue by 2028 and plans to hire up to 50 people in the region to get there. "Payments are reaching a structural turning point, with merchants consolidating onto unified infrastructure and AI moving to the heart of every transaction decision. Gabriel and the team have spent the past six years building the platform best suited to that future, earning the trust of some of the world's most demanding merchants. We're privileged to partner with them for the long term as they scale in the US and globally." Jean-François Burguet, Head of Digital at Sofina Who founded Primer and what the company does Gabriel Le Roux and his co-founder Paul Anthony started Primer in 2020, both having worked at Braintree helping enterprise clients build their payment strategies. The idea came directly from what they saw on the job. Large merchants were using multiple payment service providers to get the best performance across different markets, while also layering in specialist tools for fraud prevention, identity verification, and payouts. No single provider covered everything well, and there was nothing to tie it all together cleanly. That gap is what Primer was built to fill. The platform connects a merchant's entire payment stack through a single interface and API, covering checkout, fraud tools, processors, wallets, and payout solutions across markets. Rather than building and maintaining these connections in-house, which takes engineering time away from a company's core product, merchants use Primer to manage the full operation in one place. The platform handles the transaction lifecycle end to end: accepting payments, optimizing approval rates, routing to backup processors when something fails, and reconciling data across providers. It also gives teams real-time visibility into how their payment stack is performing at any given moment. Primer works with businesses across ecommerce, travel, fintech, and digital platforms, and processes billions of transactions each year. The investors behind the round With this Series C, Primer's total funding reaches $170 million. Sofina, listed on Euronext Brussels, led the round. The firm focuses on long-term partnerships with entrepreneurs and has investments across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Peak XV Partners joined as a new investor, bringing over two decades of experience across India, Southeast Asia, and beyond. The firm manages over $10 billion in capital across 16 funds and has backed more than 400 companies. "Primer has built a unified infrastructure that manages nearly 100% of payment volume for its clients, giving global enterprises a complete view across multiple processors, acquirers, fraud tools and payment methods. As payments enter a new architectural era, that depth of context becomes critical for AI agents to make decisions. We are excited to partner with Primer as they expand globally." Aakash Kapoor, Principal at Peak XV Partners Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest all returned for the round. Funding details. * Company name: Primer * Funding round: Series C * Date: May 2026 * Funding amount: $100 million * Lead investors: Sofina Get the industry's biggest AI news straight to your inbox.