Synopsis
Peak XV Partners has joined a $100 million fundraise for global payments infrastructure startup Primer, marking another overseas investment for the Indian VC firm. The funding will accelerate AI investments and US expansion, where Primer expects significant revenue growth.Listen to this article in summarized format
The round was led by Belgium-based Sofina, with Peak XV Partners and existing investors Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest participating, Primer said in a statement on Wednesday.
The startup said the round was oversubscribed and will be used to accelerate investments in AI for payments and finance teams and expand in the US, where it expects revenue to account for more than a third of its business by 2028.
The investment comes as Indian venture capital firms, led by Peak XV, are increasingly looking at US-based AI and SaaS companies. Earlier this month, Peak XV opened its first office in the US, in San Francisco’s Bay Area.
ET reported a couple of weeks ago that Peak XV had appointed former Fractal executive Shelly Singh as an operating partner in San Francisco, as the firm sharpens its focus on US deals, especially in AI. Last year, the VC hired Arnav Sahu, a former investor at YCombinator, as a partner in the US.
Since mid-2025, Peak XV has backed US-based AI startups, including PostHog, MarqVision, and Hyperbound, ET had reported. It also recently participated in cybersecurity startup Exaforce’s $125 million Series B round.
What Primer does
Primer, founded in 2020 by former Braintree and PayPal executives, provides a unified infrastructure layer for global payments. The company said many merchants still run payments across multiple processors, acquirers and fraud tools, leaving them without a single view of payment flows.
The startup’s platform sits across a merchant’s payment lifecycle, from checkout to payout, captures more than 400 data points per transaction, and manages more than 95% of customer payment volume for the merchant, on average.
Primer processes billions of transactions annually for various brands, including GetYourGuide, Dialpad and Printful. The startup said it will use the new capital to expand its AI product, Primer Companion, which was released last year and is used by merchants to answer payment queries and surface contextual insights.
The US currently accounts for around a fifth of Primer’s revenue, with annual recurring revenue in the region doubling year on year, the company said. It plans to hire up to 50 people in the US to support expansion.
“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,” said Aakash Kapoor, principal at Peak XV. “As payments enter a new architectural era, that depth of context becomes critical for AI agents to make decisions.”
