Pliant raises $80m to open its B2B payments stack to AI agents

Pliant raises $80m to open its B2B payments stack to AI agents

4 November 2026: Pliant says it has raised an $80 million Series C led by Seaya Nova and Speedinvest, and it will spend the money on North American expansion and on letting AI agents use its payment infrastructure. Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures also took part.

Not yet independently verified. All figures are Pliant's own, from its release. A German start-up ticker also names Citi Ventures as an investor, citing Handelsblatt, but Pliant's release does not, so we have left it out. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

Agents as the next payment users

The release puts agentic payments at the centre of the raise. Pliant says third-party AI assistants can already connect to its platform through the Model Context Protocol, and the new capital goes toward deepening what agents and automated workflows can do on it.

Malte Rau, its CEO and co-founder, said: "We built Pliant as an API-first, modular B2B payments platform from day one." Vinoth Jayakumar, a general partner at Seaya Nova, argued that as AI changes how companies move money, "the licensed infrastructure underneath becomes more important, not less."

For a finance team the practical question is what an agent is allowed to do. The release does not describe spending limits, approval rules or liability for an agent's purchases, so a buyer considering this would need those from Pliant directly.

Licences and reach behind the cards

Founded in 2020 and based in Berlin, Pliant is a principal member of both Visa and Mastercard. It says it issues commercial cards in 13 currencies across 32 countries, under a European e-money licence and through regulated partners in the UK and US.

That licence position is the core of its pitch. Its customers include travel, insurance and AI-native companies, along with banks, fintechs and software platforms.

Revenue, staff and the North American push

The company says it has doubled its business in each of three consecutive years and recently went past $100 million in annual recurring revenue. It employs more than 300 people across eight offices and says it processes billions of dollars in annual payment volume across Europe and North America.

The money is earmarked for growth in the United States and Canada and for preparing entry into further international markets, none of which the release names.

Where it sits among spend tools

Our spend management category lists 16 products and our payment processing category lists 14. Pliant comes at the same budget from a different side, selling card issuing and payment infrastructure as well as a finance team's tool, so comparisons should cover the licence model as well as the feature list.

Company profile on TrustList: Pliant

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Sources

• Pliant: Pliant Raises $80 Million Series C to Open B2B Payment Infrastructure to AI Agents, 4 November 2026, 4 November 2026