Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Sapiom, a San Francisco–based startup, has raised $15 million in seed funding to build a financial infrastructure that allows AI agents to purchase their own software tools, APIs, and cloud services. As more nontechnical users adopt “vibe coding” platforms like Lovable to create applications using plain language, the need for seamless backend integrations has become increasingly important. However, turning these prototypes into fully functional products often requires complex connections to third-party services such as SMS providers, email platforms, and payment processors like Stripe.
Recognizing this challenge, Ilan Zerbib, former director of engineering for payments at Shopify, launched Sapiom last summer to simplify this process. Instead of requiring developers to manually set up accounts, authenticate APIs, and manage payments, Sapiom creates a secure financial layer that enables AI agents to automatically access and pay for the services they need.
In practical terms, every time an AI agent connects to a service such as Twilio for SMS messaging, it must authenticate and process a micro-payment. Traditionally, this requires human involvement. With Sapiom, however, the AI agent can independently decide which tools to use and when to pay for them, making automation truly autonomous.
Amit Kumar, partner at Accel, highlighted the growing importance of this capability, stating, “In the future, apps are going to consume services which require payments. Right now, there’s no easy way for agents to actually access all of that.” After evaluating multiple AI payment startups, Accel chose to lead Sapiom’s round because of its enterprise-first approach.
The $15 million funding round also includes participation from Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures. According to Kumar, nearly every digital interaction involves a payment — whether sending a text, making an API call, or launching a cloud server on AWS.
Although Sapiom remains in its early stages, the company aims to support vibe-coding platforms and other AI agent developers that want automated access to external services. For instance, instead of manually signing up for Twilio, entering credit card details, and pasting API keys, a user could rely on Sapiom to handle everything in the background while being billed through their development platform.
Currently, Sapiom focuses primarily on business-to-business use cases. Over time, however, its technology could extend to personal AI assistants that manage consumer transactions, such as booking rides or placing online orders. Even so, Zerbib remains realistic about adoption, believing that AI will not necessarily increase spending but will instead make transactions more efficient and seamless for enterprises.
Ultimately, Sapiom positions itself as a critical financial backbone for the next generation of autonomous AI agents, enabling smarter, safer, and frictionless digital interactions.
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