Primer Raises $100M Series C to Bring AI to Every Payment and Accelerate US Expansion
Released on: Wednesday, 20 May 2026 1:16PM
Primer leadership team pictured left to right. Top row: Pierre-Edouard Jumel (CFO), Gabriel Le Roux (Co-Founder and CEO), Sam Elgar (VP Merchant Experience) and Theo Spyrides (VP Product). Bottom row: Caitriona Staunton (VP People), Alex Mallet (CTO), Jade Maitland (VP Marketing) and Mikael Minvielle (COO).
- The round was led by Sofina with participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest.
- The round was oversubscribed, reflecting strong investor conviction in Primer as the unified infrastructure to make merchant payments fully AI-enabled.
- Funds will be used to accelerate Primer's investment in AI for payments and finance teams and to drive its expansion in the US, where it plans to grow revenue to more than a third of total revenue by 2028.
NEW YORK & SINGAPORE, May 20 (Bernama-BUSINESS WIRE) -- Primer today announces a $100 million Series C funding round, as it continues to build the AI-enabled operating layer for global payments and finance.
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This press release features multimedia. View the full release here:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260519989278/en/
The round is led by Sofina, with participation from Peak XV Partners, and continued backing from all existing investors, including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest.
You can't build intelligent payments on fragmented data:
AI is only as good as the data it runs on. In payments, that data is rarely complete.
Many organisations run payments across fragmented processors, acquirers, and fraud tools, with no single system providing a complete view.
As payments and finance teams turn to AI to move faster and make decisions, that fragmentation becomes a critical vulnerability, risking it to make incorrect decisions at scale.
Primer was founded in 2020 on the premise that payments needed a single, unified infrastructure layer before they could benefit from the intelligence built on top.
Today, the platform sits across a merchant’s entire payments lifecycle, from checkout to payout, capturing over 400 data points per transaction and managing more than 95% of customer payment volume on average.
Processing billions of transactions annually for brands like GetYourGuide, Dialpad and Printful, it provides businesses with a complete and contextual view of their payment flows. That completeness unlocks AI's full potential.
“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.”
Deploying AI across every payment flow:
Following the raise, Primer is now doubling down on its investment in AI capabilities, including expansion of its proprietary AI agent - Primer Companion.
Released last year (2025) Primer Companion is already in the hands of merchants helping them answer the most complex payment queries and surfacing contextual insights.
Primer will now be building capabilities at scale for it to run experiments, optimize performance, and operate autonomously, within merchant-defined parameters, moving from a tool that informs decisions to one that executes them.
“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.
Scaling in the US:
The US is the world's largest payments market and the clearest expression of the problem Primer was built to solve, representing a significant growth opportunity. Primer has already established traction in the region, which now accounts for around a fifth of revenue, with ARR doubling year-on-year.
The company plans to grow US revenue to more than a third of the business by 2028 and will hire up to 50 roles in the region to support that expansion.
Jean-François Burguet, Head of Digital at Sofina, said: "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."
Aakash Kapoor, Principal, Peak XV, added: “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.”
About Primer:
Primer is the unified infrastructure for global payments, founded by former leaders of Braintree and PayPal. Its single platform gives finance and payments teams the visibility and control to reduce complexity, improve performance, and capture more revenue. Trusted by leading companies including Get Your Guide, Dialpad, Rail Europe, Printful, Lime, and loveholidays across ecommerce, travel, fintech, and digital platforms, Primer has raised $170 million from investors including Sofina, Peak XV Partners, ICONIQ, Tencent, Accel, Balderton, and Speedinvest. For more information, visit primer.io.
About Sofina:
Sofina is a Belgian investment company, listed on Euronext Brussels. Sofina’s mission is to partner with leading entrepreneurs and families, backing them with patient capital and supportive advice to foster sustainable growth of their businesses. Relationships and alignment are at the heart of what we do. Sofina has investments in Europe, Asia and the United States in various sectors, with a particular focus on Consumer and retail, Digital transformation, Education, Healthcare and life sciences as well as Sustainable supply chains. For more information, please visit www.sofinagroup.com
About Peak XV Partners:
Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) is a leading venture capital firm investing across India, Southeast Asia and beyond. Over the last 20 years of operations in the region, Peak XV has grown to manage over USD 10 billion in capital across 16 funds and has invested in over 400 companies. The portfolio has seen over 35 IPOs and several successful M&As to date. To know more, please visit www.peakxv.com.
View source version on businesswire.com:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260519989278/en/
Contact
PR contact: Chantal Swainston
chantal@cgs-communications.co.uk
+447512299767
Source : Primer
--BERNAMA
You can't build intelligent payments on fragmented data:
AI is only as good as the data it runs on. In payments, that data is rarely complete.
Many organisations run payments across fragmented processors, acquirers, and fraud tools, with no single system providing a complete view.
As payments and finance teams turn to AI to move faster and make decisions, that fragmentation becomes a critical vulnerability, risking it to make incorrect decisions at scale.
Primer was founded in 2020 on the premise that payments needed a single, unified infrastructure layer before they could benefit from the intelligence built on top.
Today, the platform sits across a merchant’s entire payments lifecycle, from checkout to payout, capturing over 400 data points per transaction and managing more than 95% of customer payment volume on average.
Processing billions of transactions annually for brands like GetYourGuide, Dialpad and Printful, it provides businesses with a complete and contextual view of their payment flows. That completeness unlocks AI's full potential.
“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.”
Deploying AI across every payment flow:
Following the raise, Primer is now doubling down on its investment in AI capabilities, including expansion of its proprietary AI agent - Primer Companion.
Released last year (2025) Primer Companion is already in the hands of merchants helping them answer the most complex payment queries and surfacing contextual insights.
Primer will now be building capabilities at scale for it to run experiments, optimize performance, and operate autonomously, within merchant-defined parameters, moving from a tool that informs decisions to one that executes them.
“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.
Scaling in the US:
The US is the world's largest payments market and the clearest expression of the problem Primer was built to solve, representing a significant growth opportunity. Primer has already established traction in the region, which now accounts for around a fifth of revenue, with ARR doubling year-on-year.
The company plans to grow US revenue to more than a third of the business by 2028 and will hire up to 50 roles in the region to support that expansion.
Jean-François Burguet, Head of Digital at Sofina, said: "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."
Aakash Kapoor, Principal, Peak XV, added: “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.”
About Primer:
Primer is the unified infrastructure for global payments, founded by former leaders of Braintree and PayPal. Its single platform gives finance and payments teams the visibility and control to reduce complexity, improve performance, and capture more revenue. Trusted by leading companies including Get Your Guide, Dialpad, Rail Europe, Printful, Lime, and loveholidays across ecommerce, travel, fintech, and digital platforms, Primer has raised $170 million from investors including Sofina, Peak XV Partners, ICONIQ, Tencent, Accel, Balderton, and Speedinvest. For more information, visit primer.io.
About Sofina:
Sofina is a Belgian investment company, listed on Euronext Brussels. Sofina’s mission is to partner with leading entrepreneurs and families, backing them with patient capital and supportive advice to foster sustainable growth of their businesses. Relationships and alignment are at the heart of what we do. Sofina has investments in Europe, Asia and the United States in various sectors, with a particular focus on Consumer and retail, Digital transformation, Education, Healthcare and life sciences as well as Sustainable supply chains. For more information, please visit www.sofinagroup.com
About Peak XV Partners:
Peak XV Partners (formerly Sequoia Capital India & SEA) is a leading venture capital firm investing across India, Southeast Asia and beyond. Over the last 20 years of operations in the region, Peak XV has grown to manage over USD 10 billion in capital across 16 funds and has invested in over 400 companies. The portfolio has seen over 35 IPOs and several successful M&As to date. To know more, please visit www.peakxv.com.
View source version on businesswire.com:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260519989278/en/
Contact
PR contact: Chantal Swainston
chantal@cgs-communications.co.uk
+447512299767
Source : Primer
--BERNAMA