Primer Raises £14M Series A to Simplify Payments for Merchants

Primer, a financial technology company based in the U.K., is working to simplify payment processing for businesses and facilitate the integration of new payment options, has secured £14 million in Series A investment. Accel spearheaded this funding round, and reports suggest they were instrumental in encouraging Primer to accept the investment.

The company had not been actively seeking funding, having previously announced a £3.8 million investment in May. The team was focused on product development and engaging with potential clients through technical workshops and detailed discussions with over 100 merchants via Zoom – efforts that attracted attention.

Existing investors Balderton, SpeedInvest, and Seedcamp also participated in the Series A round, alongside new investor RTP Global. Sonali De Rycker, a partner at Accel, will be joining Primer’s board of directors.

Established by former employees of PayPal – specifically through PayPal’s acquisition of Braintree – Primer aims to provide a single payments API to streamline operations, with a core focus on increasing clarity within a merchant’s payment infrastructure.

The premise is that larger businesses, particularly those operating internationally, must support numerous payment methods, which creates substantial technical challenges, a less-than-ideal customer experience, and limited visibility.

Primer, now categorized as a “low code” platform, handles much of this complex work for merchants while remaining neutral regarding specific payment methods. This approach intends to simplify the adoption of new payment options as they emerge and provide enhanced data regarding the performance of each checkout method.

The platform offers integrations not only with payment-service-providers (PSPs) but also with fraud detection services, chargeback management systems, subscription billing platforms, business intelligence tools, and loyalty/rewards programs. Primer explains that both payment and non-payment services can be “seamlessly connected to the checkout experience and payments flow via workflows, enabling merchants to unify their fraud mitigation efforts, build advanced transaction routing, and resolve complex processes – all without coding.”

Primer states that the new funds will be allocated to expanding its international operations and growing its team. Operating as a remote-first organization, Primer currently employs 23 individuals across six countries and has already gained momentum with mid-sized and large e-commerce businesses throughout Europe.

Paul Anthony, Primer’s co-founder and head of product and engineering, notes: “Our experience at PayPal revealed the significant technical difficulties online merchants encounter when striving to deliver optimal payment experiences to their customers worldwide. Our low-code solution empowers merchants’ payments teams to effectively manage and broaden their payments ecosystems, and to maintain complex payments logic using a familiar workflow interface.”

This latest investment brings Primer’s total funding to £17.8 million, arriving shortly after the initial release of the company’s platform.