Primer raises $100M Series C for US growth and AI payments

London-based payment infrastructure company Primer has secured €86.2 million in Series C funding, a move designed to accelerate the expansion of its AI-powered payments and finance platform while deepening its footprint in the United States. The company aims to have the US contribute more than a third of its total revenue by 2028, a goal supported by plans to hire up to 50 new roles in the region.

Primer operates as a financial technology firm offering a unified payment infrastructure, giving businesses the ability to optimize and control every stage of the payment process. Its platform delivers end-to-end visibility and control across the entire payment operations system, integrating services like payment orchestration, reconciliation, security, foreign exchange, and financial operations into a single, open layer.

The company was built to address a persistent industry challenge: businesses relying on a patchwork of fragmented providers and tools to manage payments. Today, Primer’s platform covers the full merchant payment lifecycle, recording over 400 data points per transaction and handling more than 95% of customer payment volume on average.

This investment round was led by Sofina and Peak XV Partners, with backing from existing investors including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest. With this latest injection, Primer has raised a total of €146.6 million, and its platform is now adopted across more than 30 countries.

Founded in 2020 by Gabriel Le Roux, formerly of Braintree, and Paul Anthony, formerly of PayPal, Primer was initially backed by Balderton and Accel in pre-seed and Series A rounds. Since then, the company has secured multiple funding rounds and launched new products such as Fallbacks and Network Tokenization.

In 2025, Primer introduced its own proprietary AI agent, AI Companion, alongside Global Accounts, enabling companies to optimize and control finance across their operations. The AI agent targets a new problem created by the rise of artificial intelligence: data fragmentation across multiple systems, which can lead to major vulnerabilities and flawed, widespread decisions.

“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,” said Gabriel Le Roux, CEO and co-founder of Primer.

The company reports processing billions of transactions annually for enterprise clients such as GetYourGuide, Dialpad, Printful, Conforama, Printify, Jackpot.com, and Maisons du Monde.

This new capital will support the expansion of Primer’s AI-native infrastructure, which the company expects will become the next-generation foundation for payments and finance teams. The plan is to scale capabilities that allow businesses to run experiments, optimize performance, and operate autonomously, supporting contextual, AI-driven decision-making.

“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.

Aakash Kapoor, principal at Peak XV, commented: “As payments enter a new architectural era, that depth of context becomes critical for AI agents to make decisions.”

The US represents a massive growth opportunity for the startup, already accounting for roughly one-fifth of Primer’s revenue, with annual recurring revenue (ARR) in the region doubling year-on-year.