Pliant Raises $80M to Let AI Agents Into B2B Payments
Hey Payments Fanatic!
What if your AI assistant could start your company's payment workflows?
That's the bet behind Pliant's latest round. The Berlin-based company has raised an $80 million Series C led by Seaya Nova and Speedinvest, with Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures also joining.
Pliant issues commercial cards and offers payment accounts, FX and spend management to more than 5,000 businesses. In July, it passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue, and it says it has doubled its business three years in a row.
The AI part is what caught my attention. Third-party agents, from assistants like Claude and ChatGPT to a company's own automations, connect to Pliant via the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Its own AI agents already handle recurring finance work for customers.
According to Tech Funding News, those agents work with permissions, spending controls and audit trails.
That last part matters. In B2B payments, finance teams will want to know who approved each payment and be able to check it later.
CEO and co-founder Malte Rau says the investment will help Pliant open "more of our infrastructure directly to AI agents." It will also fund expansion in the US and Canada.
Would you let an AI agent pay your company's suppliers?
Here’s what else is happening in payments today👇
See you tomorrow!
Cheers,
INSIGHTS
💡 Stripe vs. Adyen: Who Is Winning the Payments Battle? A new comparison highlights the different growth strategies of two payments giants. Stripe reported 41% revenue growth in H1 2026, alongside 43% growth in free cash flow, while Adyen delivered 23% net revenue growth in Q3, with payment volume rising 30% to €451.1 billion and Platforms revenue growing 46%. Both companies are expanding beyond traditional payment processing: Stripe is focusing on AI, crypto and internet infrastructure, while Adyen is investing in enterprise payments, Unified Commerce, loyalty and billing. Although the reporting periods and revenue metrics differ, the comparison highlights two distinct approaches to scaling global payments. Read the full comparison here
NEWS
🇩🇪 Pliant raises $80M Series C for its B2B card and spend management infrastructure. Seaya Nova and Speedinvest led the round for the Berlin-based company, with Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures joining. Pliant passed $100M in annualised revenue in July and is piloting agent payments.
🇧🇭 CrediMax and Mastercard explore agentic commerce for Bahrain's merchants. The collaboration will initially focus on Mastercard's Agent Suite for Merchants, delivered through Mastercard Merchant Cloud, alongside Mastercard Gateway for payment processing. CrediMax is among the first in Bahrain to do so.
🇲🇦 Mastercard supports Samsung Pay launch in Morocco. Eligible Mastercard cardholders at participating banks can now pay with compatible Samsung devices, using Mastercard's MDES tokenisation. The two companies will also roll out a joint consumer campaign.
💳 Clink adds support for Mastercard Agent Pay. AI agents using Clink can now check out on the Mastercard network with tokenised credentials rather than raw card numbers. Clink already supports Visa Intelligent Commerce.
🇸🇬 Pine Labs and Stripe launch unified commerce for Singapore retailers. From November, eligible merchants can use Stripe for online payments and Pine Labs terminals for in-store card payments. Expansion across the region is planned for 2027.
🇪🇺 Damex. io explains how EU businesses can use euro stablecoins such as EURC. The MFSA-authorised crypto-asset service provider notes that under MiCA, a stablecoin referencing a single official currency such as the euro is generally an e-money token.
🇵🇱 BLIK records 822 million transactions in Q3. Transaction value grew 17% YoY to PLN131.8B, with online payments up 10% to 384.3 million. BLIK had 21.9 million active users at the end of September.
🇨🇦 Canada and the EU plan to explore linking their instant payment systems. Under the Alliance for the Future, announced at the Canada-EU Summit on 30 October, both sides will support work towards connecting Canada's planned Real-Time Rail with Europe's TIPS system to enable faster cross-border payments.
🇧🇭 AFS launches Tap to Pay on iPhone in Bahrain. Arab Financial Services unveiled AFS PRO Tap to Pay at Gateway Gulf, with a UAE launch planned for early November alongside Mawarid Finance and Mastercard. AFS is owned by 36 banks.
🇧🇷 iFood's Zoop becomes an acquirer under Brazil's new payment rules. Now connected directly to card schemes, Zoop counts iFood as its first acquiring client and serves more than 50 accounts, including Itaú and Nubank. It processed R$155B in TPV over the past 12 months.
🇬🇧 Cardstream Group launches Flowes embedded payments platform. The white-label Payment Facilitation-as-a-Service proposition lets acquirers activate new payment facilitators within days rather than months, with support from Discover Network, Diners Club International and Equifax.
🇬🇧 Telleroo launches business savings and inbound payments. UK SMEs can earn 3.34% AER variable on savings provided with Griffin, including a promotional rate until March 2027. Telleroo, authorised as an EMI in 2025, integrates with Stripe, Shopify and GoCardless.
🇮🇳 Razorpay receives Sebi approval for its IPO. The Bengaluru-based FinTech aims to raise ₹5,000–6,000 crore at a valuation of around $5B, according to an industry source, with a listing targeted as early as Q1 2027.
🇺🇸 Expensify signs referral agreement with Visa. Visa can refer eligible clients and corporate card programmes to Expensify, which offers receipt matching, AI expense categorisation and policy enforcement. Businesses can link existing Visa cards without changing how they pay.
🇲🇹 Calida Financial launches cardless payments with Bluecode. The Malta-based issuer's embedded finance platform enables NFC and QR contactless payments without a card across more than 260 million points of sale. It is live within the Bluecode app
🌍 Enza raises $6M Seed+ round for African payments infrastructure. The company provides payments infrastructure for banks and FinTechs across Africa. At its seed stage, Enza had secured more than 10 million monthly contracted transactions across six markets.
🇧🇷 Yellow Card acquires Brazilian virtual asset firm GoMoney. The stablecoin payments provider gains direct operations in Brazil, adding Pix and BRL collections and disbursements. GoMoney's full authorisation remains subject to Central Bank of Brazil approval.
GOLDEN NUGGET
Every major instant payment system was built to stop at the border.
That's starting to change.
The basics first: these are payments straight between bank accounts, outside the card rails. Always on, settled in seconds, final once they clear, and cheap even at scale.
Adoption at home is already huge:
• Brazil 🇧🇷: 76% of people use Pix, ahead of both cash and debit cards
• India 🇮🇳: UPI processed 228 billion transactions in 2025
• 266 billion instant payments globally in 2023, heading to 575 billion by 2028 🤯
But every scheme was built domestic by design.
And two countries built the same rail in opposite ways:
→ Brazil: central bank led, big institutions must join
→ US: two rails (one run by the Fed, one by banks), and banks opt in
Different builders, same outcome: instant payments at home.
The open question in 2026 is what happens across borders.
There are two ways to get there:
→ Connect the rails: Brazil and Europe's central banks are studying a Pix-to-TIPS link
→ Add new ones: Project Nexus wants to connect national instant systems, with a 2027 launch targeted
And this is where cards quietly change job.
A2A wins domestic transfers. Cross-border retail still runs on cards. So the card layer has to work with these rails as they connect:
• Stablecoin-native cards: issuer funding and settlement in stablecoins
• Instant funding, so a card approves in real time
• Global issuing across 150+ countries on one integration
The key insight is simple:
Real-time payments are settled at home and still an open question across borders.
The next chapter is connection.
Source: Pomelo. Explore the full article here
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