Pliant raises USD 80m Series C to open its B2B payments platform to AI agents
The Berlin company, which issues commercial cards in 32 countries, says it has doubled its business three years in a row and now lets AI assistants run payment workflows through its licensed infrastructure.
Pliant announced on 4 November 2026 a USD 80 million Series C round led by Seaya Nova and Speedinvest, with participation from Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures. The Next Web and Tech Funding News reported that the round was oversubscribed.
The funding follows three consecutive years in which Pliant doubled its business and comes shortly after it surpassed USD 100 million in annual recurring revenue, according to the company. The money will fund expansion in the US and Canada, entry into further markets and its AI roadmap.
What Pliant does
Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Berlin, Pliant is a modular B2B payments platform. It combines commercial card issuing, payment accounts, foreign exchange and spend management. Businesses in travel, e-commerce, insurance and AI-native technology use it to manage complex payment workflows, while banks, fintechs and software platforms use its infrastructure to build their own commercial card offerings.
Pliant is a principal member of Visa and Mastercard and issues commercial cards in 13 currencies across 32 countries under its European e-money licence, and through regulated partners in the UK and US. It employs more than 300 people across eight offices and processes billions of dollars in annual payment volume, the company said.
The AI agent angle
The headline of the round is agentic payments. Pliant's own AI agents already automate recurring finance work for customers. Third-party agents, from assistants such as Claude and ChatGPT to a company's in-house automations, can connect to Pliant through the Model Context Protocol (MCP) and run payment workflows inside other business processes, with permissions, controls and audit trails built in, according to the company.
"Whether an established business wants AI to automate its payment processes with the right guardrails, or an AI-native company needs a licensed partner that moves as fast as it does, Pliant is built for that," said Malte Rau, CEO and co-founder, in the announcement.
Vinoth Jayakumar, general partner at Seaya Nova, said that as AI changes how companies move money, "the licensed infrastructure underneath becomes more important, not less." The Next Web quoted him adding that when agents move money, someone still has to be licensed, auditable and liable.
The investors
Seaya Nova is the growth fund of Madrid-based Seaya, which we covered when it announced a EUR 600m first close last month. Speedinvest co-led again: Tech Funding News reported that Pliant's USD 40 million Series B in April 2025 was led by Illuminate Financial and Speedinvest, and that Illuminate, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures had previously invested.
By Tech Funding News' calculation, Pliant's total equity funding now exceeds USD 180 million. The publication also noted that the company has debt facilities, including a EUR 100 million facility announced in January 2024. Pliant did not disclose a valuation.
Molten Ventures, in its own note on the deal, described vertical B2B payments as one of the most compelling infrastructure opportunities and said Pliant has expanded from card issuance into a broader payments platform.
North America
The new capital will support continued growth in the United States and Canada and preparation for further international markets. The Next Web noted that agent payments are drawing interest across the industry, citing a Visa pilot in which AI agents pay supplier invoices, and that US corporate card rival Ramp reached a USD 60bn valuation in October.
What it means for European founders and investors
Pliant is one of a small group of European fintechs to pass USD 100 million in ARR while building regulated infrastructure rather than a consumer app. Its pitch for the AI era is that licences, card network memberships and compliance controls become more valuable when software agents start initiating payments, because someone still has to carry the regulatory responsibility.
For founders building AI agents for finance teams, the round signals that payment rails are opening up through standards like MCP. For investors, it shows that European growth funds are willing to back a B2B fintech heading into the US, a market where well-funded local rivals already compete. More rounds are on our funding page.
What happens next
Pliant will use the money to expand in North America, enter further international markets and deepen its agentic payments and workflow capabilities. The company did not give a timeline for new market launches.
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