Primer raises USD $100 million to boost AI & US growth

Primer has raised USD $100 million in a Series C funding round led by Sofina, with participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors.

The financing brings the payments infrastructure company's total funding to USD $170 million. Existing backers in the round included Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent and Speedinvest.

Primer will use the new capital to increase spending on artificial intelligence products for payments and finance teams and to expand in the United States. The US currently accounts for about a fifth of revenue, and annual recurring revenue there has doubled year on year.

Founded in 2020 by former Braintree and PayPal executives, Primer sells software that helps merchants manage payments across multiple processors, acquirers, fraud tools and payment methods through a single system. Its platform spans the full payments process, from checkout to payout, and captures more than 400 data points per transaction.

The company manages more than 95% of customer payment volume on average and processes billions of transactions each year for clients including GetYourGuide, Dialpad and Printful. Primer argues that this breadth of transaction data is central to making AI tools effective, because they need a complete view of payment activity to make sound decisions.

AI push

Much of the new funding will go towards expanding Primer Companion, the company's AI agent for merchants. Launched last year, the product is already being used by customers to answer payment queries and surface operational insights.

The next stage is to let the software run experiments, optimise payment performance and act with more autonomy within limits set by merchants. That would move the product beyond an advisory role and towards taking direct action in payment operations.

Chief executive and Co-founder Gabriel Le Roux set out the company's view of where the market is heading.

"In the next few years, every payment decision in a large business will be initiated, optimised or audited by AI. That shift is already underway," said Le Roux,

"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."

He also described the intended role of Primer Companion as the product develops.

"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."

US growth

Primer is also directing a significant share of the new funds to the US market, which it sees as its biggest opportunity for expansion. It aims to increase US revenue to more than a third of total revenue by 2028 and plans to hire up to 50 people in the region.

That focus reflects the scale and complexity of the US payments market, where large merchants often rely on a mix of payment providers and support systems. Companies offering orchestration and unified payments management argue that such fragmentation creates operational and data challenges, especially as businesses look to automate more decisions.

Sofina and Peak XV both framed their investment around that shift in payment infrastructure and the growing role of AI in transaction management.

"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," said Jean-François Burguet, Head of Digital at Sofina.

"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, the depth of context becomes critical for AI agents to make decisions. We are excited to partner with Primer as they expand globally," said Aakash Kapoor, Principal at Peak XV.

The investment comes as businesses across eCommerce, travel, fintech and online services continue to look for ways to cut complexity in payments stacks while improving approval rates, fraud controls and reporting. For vendors in this market, the ability to aggregate data from multiple payment systems is becoming a central selling point as AI tools move closer to operational decision-making.

Primer's customers also include Rail Europe, Lime and loveholidays.