Basis Theory Raises $33 Million Series B Led by Costanoa Ventures to Power the Future of Agentic Commerce
Basis Theory, a San Francisco-based payments infrastructure provider, has raised US $33 million in a Series B funding round led by Costanoa Ventures, with participation from Stage 2 Capital and Moneta Ventures. Existing backers including Bessemer Venture Partners, Kindred Ventures, BoxGroup, and Offline Ventures also took part. This latest investment brings Basis Theory’s total funding to approximately US $50 million.
Founded in 2020 by fintech veterans Brian Billingsley, Colin Luce, and Ben Milne, Basis Theory offers a cloud-native payment vault that enables merchants and platforms to tokenize payment data and manage it independently of processors and orchestrators. The vault complies with PCI Level 1, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001 standards, and the company says it empowers customers to treat payment data as programmable and flexible—something that has historically been restricted by payment service providers.
The Series B raise marks a strategic milestone for Basis Theory as it doubles down on what it calls “agentic commerce”—enabling AI-driven systems to autonomously purchase goods and services on behalf of users in a secure, compliant, and scalable fashion. The company plans to use the funds to expand the global reach of its enterprise-grade payment infrastructure, accelerate engineering and product development, and further support its Agentic Commerce Consortium, a network of over 20 companies collaborating on the future of autonomous payments. It also intends to scale its team across product, engineering, and go-to-market functions.
CEO Colin Luce said the new round “validates our mission of giving merchants full control over their payments data and the flexibility to innovate on their own terms.” He added that the payments ecosystem is rapidly evolving, and Basis Theory’s technology offers an open, programmable vault and API layer that sits above processors and orchestration systems—allowing merchants to control and innovate without dependency on a single provider.
Basis Theory’s technology has already been deployed by clients including Pinterest, Melio, and MoneyGram. These integrations demonstrate the company’s traction among fintech platforms, global merchants, and financial service providers that demand flexibility in how they store, route, and secure sensitive payment information. By allowing businesses to tokenize and manage data independently, Basis Theory enables payment routing across multiple processors, supports compliance across jurisdictions, and reduces integration overhead for global expansion.
The company’s focus on agentic commerce also positions it at the forefront of a major industry shift. As AI agents begin to automate purchases on behalf of consumers and enterprises, traditional payment systems—designed for human authorization and manual oversight—are increasingly being tested for adaptability. Basis Theory’s platform provides the vaulting and abstraction layers needed to facilitate these autonomous transactions securely, potentially setting the foundation for a new paradigm in commerce infrastructure.
Despite the excitement around AI-enabled transactions, Basis Theory faces the challenges typical of infrastructure startups in the payments space. Convincing large enterprises to overhaul or complement existing systems, ensuring compliance with evolving data-sovereignty laws, and differentiating from established incumbents such as Stripe and Adyen will be key hurdles. Additionally, as the concept of agentic commerce matures, the company must demonstrate measurable gains in performance, authorization rates, and operational cost reduction for clients adopting its system.
With the new capital infusion, Basis Theory aims to strengthen its leadership position in programmable payments and expand its product suite to support emerging use cases across e-commerce, fintech, and AI-enabled marketplaces. It also plans to extend its presence in key global markets, integrate new payment methods, and grow its partner ecosystem. Backed by top-tier investors like Costanoa Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Kindred Ventures, Basis Theory is poised to redefine how businesses manage and secure payment data in the age of intelligent, autonomous transactions.
