Primer secures $100M Series C to expand AI payments infrastructure and scale US operations

Primer Secures $100M Series C to Scale AI-Powered Payment Operations

Primer, a London-based global payments infrastructure startup, has closed a $100 million Series C funding round led by Belgian investment firm Sofina and Peak XV Partners. The oversubscribed round included participation from existing investors Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest, bringing the company's total capital raised to $170 million since its 2020 founding 1

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. Founded by Gabriel Le Roux, formerly of Braintree, and Paul Anthony, previously with PayPal, Primer addresses a persistent challenge in the payments industry: businesses relying on multiple fragmented providers throughout the payment journey 3

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Unified Payment Infrastructure Tackles Data Fragmentation

Primer provides a unified payment infrastructure that integrates payment orchestration, reconciliation, security, foreign exchange, and financial operations into a single open layer. The platform sits across a merchant's entire payment lifecycle, from checkout to payout, capturing over 400 data points per transaction and managing more than 95% of customer payment volume on average 1

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. Processing billions of transactions annually for enterprise clients including GetYourGuide, Dialpad, Printful, Conforama, Printify, Jackpot.com, and Maisons du Monde, the company has established operations spanning more than 30 countries 2

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. This comprehensive approach solves the problem of data fragmentation that occurs when merchants run payments across multiple processors, acquirers, and fraud tools without a single view of payment flows.

AI Companion Drives Autonomous Operations and AI-Driven Decision-Making

The funding round will accelerate investment in AI for payments and finance teams, particularly expanding Primer's proprietary AI agent called AI Companion, launched in 2025 alongside Global Accounts 1

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. CEO Gabriel Le Roux emphasized the critical need for complete data in AI payments: "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" 3

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. Primer Companion acts on behalf of merchants with full context across every payment, enabling autonomous operations that optimize performance and support contextual insights without requiring merchants to chase problems or miss opportunities 1

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US Expansion Targets Third of Revenue by 2028

A significant portion of the capital will support aggressive US expansion, where Primer currently generates approximately one-fifth of its revenue with annual recurring revenue doubling year-on-year 2

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. The company plans to grow US revenue to more than a third of total revenue by 2028 and will hire up to 50 roles in the region to support that expansion 3

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. This investment aligns with Peak XV Partners' broader strategy of backing US-based AI and SaaS companies, having recently opened its first US office in San Francisco's Bay Area and appointed former Fractal executive Shelly Singh as an operating partner 2

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. Aakash Kapoor, principal at Peak XV, noted that "as payments enter a new architectural era, that depth of context becomes critical for AI agents to make decisions" 1

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, highlighting why the firm sees significant potential in Primer's approach to managing nearly 100% of payment volume for its clients with complete visibility across multiple systems.