Primer, a London-based payments infrastructure startup, today announced a €86.2 million ($100 million) Series C funding round to accelerate its investment in AI for payments and finance teams and to drive its expansion in the US.
The round was led by Sofina, with participation from Peak XV Partners and continued backing from all existing investors, including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest. It has raised a total of €146.6 million ($170 million).
“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. 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.
Founded in 2020 by former leaders of Braintree and PayPal, Primer gives finance and payments teams the visibility and control to reduce complexity, improve performance, and capture more revenue, all from a single platform.
According to the company, AI is only as good as the data it runs on. In payments, Primer states that data is rarely complete. Many organisations run payments through fragmented processors, acquirers, and fraud tools, with no single system providing a complete view.
As payments and finance teams incorporate AI, this fragmentation turns into a major vulnerability, potentially leading to widespread incorrect decisions.
Primer was founded on the premise that payments needed a single, unified infrastructure layer before they could benefit from the intelligence built on top. Currently, the platform covers a merchant’s entire payments lifecycle, from checkout to payout, recording over 400 data points per transaction and handling more than 95% of customer payment volume on average.
The company reports that it processes billions of transactions annually for brands like GetYourGuide, Dialpad and Printfu
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.”
Following the raise, Primer is now doubling down on its investment in AI capabilities, including the expansion of its proprietary AI agent, Primer Companion. Released last year, Primer Companion helps merchants answer complex payment queries and surface contextual insights.
Primer states that it will now scale its capabilities to run experiments, optimise 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.
Primer has already established traction in the US, 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 its business by 2028 and will hire up to 50 roles in the region to support that expansion.
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2026/05/uk-payments-startup-primer-raises-e86-2-million-series-c-to-expand-ai-capabilities-and-accelerate-us-growth/
