Payabli Secures $28M Series B Funding to Accelerate AI Integration in Payment Solutions

Payabli raises $28M Series B

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. The new funding comes just nine months after Payabli raised its Series A led by QED Investors bringing the total capital in the company to date to $60,000,000. The Series B is led by Fika Ventures and QED Investors with participation from existing investors TTV Capital and Bling Capital. California-based Payabli provides a single unified API to allow software developers to create any payment experience they need for acceptance and issuance of money, as well as operational tools to manage the tactical needs of a payments company. This includes vertical-specific capabilities that lend themselves to certain "Need-to-Pay" businesses, like property management, utilities, education, and government. Over the past year, the company has posted a 7x year-over-year increase in revenue and surpassed 50,000 merchants on its platform. Joseph Elias Phillips, co-founder and Co-CEO of Payabl, says the new funding will be directed to product development, with a focus on AI-driven features. "We're fortunate to be experiencing rapid growth at a time when AI is poised to revolutionize the financial services industry," he says. "When our investors approached us about doubling down on Payabli, we saw a clear opportunity to go on the offensive by accelerating AI enablement across our platform and organization to drive further growth and bring groundbreaking new products and capabilities to market faster." Payabli recently launched Amigo, its first AI-powered support agent, now available through the company's technical documentation, web platform, and natively within Slack. Amigo delivers a wide range of functionality, from acting as a solution engineer that helps software companies integrate faster, to serving as a support representative that resolves tickets quickly, to functioning as a business analyst that assists software partners with reporting and analytics through a user-friendly, chat-based interface. In parallel, Payabli is working with Nvidia to develop advanced risk and fraud detection models trained on proprietary customer data to deliver tailored risk assessments specific to each customer's business and industry.

Payabli Explores AI and Spend Management After Raising $28 Million | PYMNTS.com

The company's Series B round, announced Tuesday (June 17), was led by Fika Ventures and QED Investors with participation from existing investors TTV Capital and Bling Capital. It comes just nine months after a Series A financing round led by QED, and brings Payabli's total capital to $60 million. The company said the new funding will allow it to add new products and further explore the use of artificial intelligence (AI). "As part of this investment, Payabli is exploring AI applications across two primary fronts: first, to streamline operations and drive efficiency across the organization, and second, to enhance its platform with smarter, more personalized customer experiences that ultimately increase revenue and margins," the company said in a news release. The company recently debuted Amigo, its first AI-powered support agent, and is also developing risk and fraud detection models trained on proprietary customer data. To bolster this initiative, Payabli is working with Nvidia to "leverage their cutting-edge AI infrastructure." Tools like AI and machine learning (ML) have become an important part of fraud prevention at financial instutitions (FIs), as research by PYMNTS Intelligence -- from the report "Protecting Accelerated Disbursements From Fraud," a collaboration with Ingo Payments -- has shown. "To effectively combat fraud, FIs are turning to AI and ML technologies, which are proving effective at detecting fraud in faster payments," PYMNTS wrote late last year. "These technologies analyze large amounts of transaction data in real time, spotting suspicious activity and preventing fraudulent payments before they are completed." The research shows that 71% of FIs are using AI and ML for fraud detection, compared to 66% in 2023. These technologies can identify anomalies and patterns that might elude human analysts, providing for faster decision-making. "Despite the advantages of AI and ML, many FIs face challenges in implementing these technologies due to limited expertise and resources," PYMNTS added, nothing that while nearly half of all fraud prevention technologies are developed in-house, just 14% of FIs have the capability to build AI and ML solutions internally. In addition to the AI offerings, the funding will also help Payabli as it rolls out new products, including its first embedded spend management solution. "Informed by direct feedback from existing customers, Payabli is reimagining embedded spend management by enabling software platforms to offer branded expense programs with both physical and virtual cards," the company said in its announcement.