San Francisco startup Sapiom has raised $15 million in seed funding to develop infrastructure that allows AI agents to handle payments for external services automatically. Led by Accel, the round also included participation from Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures.
Sapiom aims to simplify the financial and authentication steps that currently hinder nontechnical creators using prompt-to-code tools, such as vibe coding platforms like Lovable. When AI agents connect to external services, for example, sending SMS through Twilio, processing payments via Stripe, or spinning up servers on AWS typically require manual authentication and payment setup. Sapiom automates this process, allowing agents to purchase and access necessary software, APIs, and compute without human intervention.
Founder Ilan Zerbib, a former Shopify engineering director, is focusing on enterprise applications initially, though the technology could eventually enable personal AI agents to handle consumer transactions. By creating a seamless financial layer, Sapiom seeks to unlock the full potential of AI-powered micro-apps, letting AI agents operate independently while ensuring secure and accurate payment handling.
