Intelligent payments cannot be built on fragmented data. AI is only as good as the data it runs on. In payments, that data is rarely complete.
Many organizations 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 incorrect decisions at scale.
Payments startup Primer, which has just announced a US$100 million Series C funding round, 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, 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.”
Following the fundraise, 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 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.
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. The company plans to grow US revenue to more than a third of its business by 2028.
