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Pliant, a financial technology company specialising in business payment infrastructure, has raised $80 million in a Series C funding round to accelerate its international expansion and develop payment services designed for artificial intelligence agents. The round was announced on November 4 and led by Seaya Nova and Speedinvest, with participation from Illuminate Financial, Motive Partners and Molten Ventures.
The investment comes as businesses increasingly explore how AI systems can take on administrative and financial tasks, including expense processing, payment approvals and recurring transactions. Pliant aims to provide the regulated financial infrastructure required for these systems to carry out payment workflows under defined permissions and controls.
Commercial Payments Meet AI Agents
Pliant operates an API-first platform that combines commercial card issuing, payment accounts, foreign exchange and spend management. Its services are used by businesses as well as banks, fintech companies and software platforms that want to integrate payment capabilities into their own products.
The company’s strategy is to make this infrastructure accessible not only to employees and finance teams but also to AI-powered applications. Through integrations using the Model Context Protocol, third-party AI agents can connect to payment workflows and interact with financial services under controlled permissions.
This could allow businesses to automate selected processes, such as recurring payments and routine expense administration, while maintaining oversight of transactions.
Funding Supports North American Expansion
Pliant plans to use the new capital to strengthen its presence in the United States and Canada and prepare for expansion into additional international markets. The company also intends to accelerate product development around agentic payments and financial workflows.
The business reported that it had surpassed $100 million in annual recurring revenue and had doubled its business for three consecutive years. It employs more than 300 people across eight offices and serves customers in Europe and North America.
Controls Remain Essential for Automated Payments
The growth of AI-driven financial operations creates new opportunities but also introduces questions around transaction permissions, fraud prevention and accountability. Businesses will need to ensure that automated systems cannot move funds beyond authorised limits or bypass internal approval procedures.
Pliant’s investment in permission controls and auditability is intended to address these requirements. The latest funding gives the company additional resources to develop its platform as financial institutions and businesses assess how much payment activity can safely be delegated to software agents.
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