X Pay raises $1M to let AI agents pay per API call
What's the deal? X PayDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a payment infrastructure firm that lets AI agents and APIs pay inside a single web request, has raised $1 million. Investors include DCIDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Credit ScendDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Skyland VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Zerra Ventures, BigBull CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, ERC20 CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, EU CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Dubai Blockchain LabDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and The Crypto LaunchpadDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What the company does: X Pay is built on x402, the open payment standard contributed by Coinbase and run under the Linux FoundationDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. A server answers a request with a price, the client signs a payment, and the response arrives in the same round trip — no account, API key, or subscription required.
It runs a payment gateway, a merchant dashboard, and a developer kit, charging a flat 1% of settled volume. The service is non-custodial: merchants are paid to their own wallets and X Pay never holds customer funds.
Why now? X Pay went live on Base mainnet on September 11, 2026, and began running its own x402 facilitator on September 22. It has since settled more than 50,000 payments in USDC, each verifiable onchain.
What's the endgame? The capital will extend settlement beyond Base to BNB Chain and Solana, scale the facilitator for production volume with an independent security review, and ship tooling that lets any API charge per request. X Pay also plans an API marketplace where an agent can discover a service and pay for it in the same moment, plus compliance work in the European Union ahead of MiCA.
Andy Cheung, former chief operating officer of OKX and chief executive of K25.aiDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, has joined as an advisor.
In their words: "Software is already the busiest buyer on the internet, and it still cannot pay for anything without a person setting up an account first," said Johnny Sluijmer, chief executive officer of X Pay. "This round is about removing that step everywhere, not just on one chain."
What could go wrong? The market is crowded and early. Stripe has introduced agent wallets, while Amazon Web ServicesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → launched AgentCore payments with Stripe and Coinbase, making it generally available in August 2026. Coinbase's own x402 protocol underpins competing approaches, so winning developer adoption is not guaranteed.
The signal: Agent payments are shifting from concept to platform feature. At $1 million, X Pay's raise is a bet on the plumbing for a machine-to-machine economy — but the proof will be whether it can deliver reliable spending controls and sign up developers before bigger players lock in the standard.
Read more: techbullion.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
