This AI company has raised 110 million yuan in seed funding! They want to enable intelligent agents to spend money autonomously; Anthropic also participated in the investment. - ZhiDongXi

Wisdom****Stuff (Public account: zhidxcom) Author｜Wan Guixia Edit | Xin Yuan

Zhidongzhi February 6 news, American AI start-up companySapiomAn announcement was issued on February 5, local time, announcing the completion of**US$15.75 million (approximately RMB 110 million)**Seed round financing is designed to help AI agents purchase and use the technical tools they need.

This round of financing was funded by the world’s top technology venture capital firms Accel led the investment, Gradient, Array Ventures, Okta Ventures, Menlo Ventures,Anthropic, Coinbase Ventures, Formus Capital and Operator Collective also participated in the financing.

▲Sapiom announcement original text (Sapiom official website)

In addition, TechCrunch reported on February 5, local time that Sapiom is focusing on B2Bscenarios, but its technology may also empower personal AI agents in the future, giving them the ability to process consumer transactions.

1. A former Shopify payment executive started his own business, aiming to independently purchase software and APIs for AI

last summer,Ilan ZerbibFounded Sapiom in San Francisco, USA. He worked on a world-renowned e-commerce platformShopifyServed as Director of Payments Engineering for five years.

Currently, Ilan Zerbib is trying to build a solution that removes the barriers non-technical creators face in terms of back-end infrastructure.

▲Sapiom co-founder Ilan Zerbib (Source: LinkedIn)

According to TechCrunch, Sapiom is committed to developing a financial layer that enables AI agents to securely purchase and access software, APIs, data, and computing resources. Essentially, this is a set of tools that allow AI toAutomatically pay for the services you needsystem.

Additionally, the company focuses on B2Bscenarios, but its technology may also empower personal AI agents in the future, giving them the ability to process consumer transactions.

▲Introduction to Sapiom (Source: Sapiom official website)

In the design of this AI payment system, whenever the AI agent connects to an external tool, it needs to complete identity verification and make a small payment. Sapiom aims to make the entire processSeamless connection, enabling AI agents to make independent decisions about which services to purchase and when to purchase them without human intervention.

“Future applications will use services that require payment, but currently, agent developers do not have an easy way to access all these services.” Accel partner Amit Kumar said.

Amit Kumar has communicated with dozens of startups in the field of AI payments. He believes that Zerbib’s focus on the financial layer for enterprises is the key to making AI agents truly effective. Based on this judgment, Accel led the investment in Sapiom**US$15.75 million (approximately RMB 110 million)**Seed round financing.

2. Turn API calls into automatic payments and bet on AI agent infrastructure

“If you think about it carefully, every API call, every text message sent, and every server started on AWS is essentially a payment.” Amit Kumar said in an interview, highlighting the core value of the infrastructure Sapiom is trying to build.

Although still in its early stages, Sapiom hopes its solution will be Vibe CodingUsed by platforms and other AI agent development companies.

TechCrunch reports mentioned that with the rise of atmospheric programming,Users without a programming background can build custom applications. Although these prompt programming tools can quickly generate prototypes, it is still difficult to actually put the application into production. Without figuring out how to connect your app to external services like text messaging, email, or payment processing, the development process can become quite tricky.

Sapiom’s technology will make the user’s payment process more convenient when implemented in practice. For example, users who use the atmosphere programming tool to develop applications with SMS functions no longer need to manually register Twilio, bind credit cards, or copy API keys. Sapiom will automatically complete all operations in the background.

Foreign media TechCrunch believes that this company has finally enabled AI agents to be givenComplete a variety of tasks independentlycapabilities, and its infrastructure is a key piece of the puzzle to realize this future.

People hope that one day in the future, individuals will be able to trust AI agents to make independent financial decisions, such as taking a taxi or shopping online.

Although this prospect is quite attractive, Sapiom founder Ilan Zerbib believes that AI will not allow people to buy more goods “out of thin air”. His current focus is still on building a stable and reliable financial infrastructure for enterprises.

Source: Sapiom, TechCrunch