Swiss artificial intelligence payments startup Nevermined SÀRL said today it has closed on a $4 million funding round.

The money will be used to accelerate the development of its decentralized infrastructure for AI-to-AI transactions, enabling AI agents to engage in automated commerce. Today’s round was led by Generative Ventures and saw participation from a host of others, including Polymorphic Capital, Near Protocol, Halo Capital Factor Capital, Lyrik Ventures and Arca, plus a number of angel investors.

Nevermined sees itself as becoming the “PayPal for AI,” with its decentralized payments infrastructure providing the rails for AI agents to pay and be paid. It says it will make it easier for AI developers to make money from AI agents, with comprehensive tools for managing payments, tracking usage and the creation of credit systems for users.

AI agents are more advanced AI systems that can perform complex, multistep tasks without human supervision. They represent a big advance on traditional large language models such as ChatGPT, which can generate outputs only in response to human prompts. They are one of the hottest trends in the AI industry today, and many believe they will soon revolutionize the way enterprises conduct business, though others predict they will take awhile to develop.

The startup says it’s relying on Web3 technologies such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies and smart contracts to solve the shortcomings of traditional payment systems, which fall short of what’s required for autonomous AI agents.

According to Nevermined Chief Technology Officer Aitor Argomaniz, existing payment infrastructure was designed for static transactions, such as selling t-shirts on eBay, where the price of that product very rarely changes. In contrast, Nevermined provides the tools needed to implement more dynamic pricing models, where rates vary over time based on user demand and other metrics.

“AI agents are dynamic and require an equally dynamic payments system that can respond instantly to new requests,” Argomaniz explained. “We’ve built the foundation already, and now we want to grow user adoption from both AI builders and AI agents.”

In addition to creating payment rails for AI agents, Nevermined is also building an ecosystem of tools for billing customers, subscriptions and more. Ultimately, it wants to create a comprehensive finance management platform that can address every aspect of AI payments.

This will be necessary, because the future of commerce will be less about humans trading with humans, and much more about AI agents transacting with other AI agents, said Nevermined founder and Chief Executive Don Gossen. “This funding will allow us to accelerate our mission of building the financial rails for the emerging AI economy,” he added.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller told SiliconANGLE said Nevermined understands that autonomous AI agents are going to transform everything with regards to how business is done in the modern world.

“They know that AI agent commerce is going to need a different payment model and infrastructure, as well as a legal and regulatory outline,” the analyst said. “Building that won’t be easy, but it’s good to see Nevermined is having a go at it, and it will be exciting to see what kind of difference it can make in a payment industry that has traditionally always been quite conservative and somewhat resistant to change.”

The startup has already made some progress, establishing partnerships with AI firms such as Naptha AI Pty Ltd., which creates AI models based on collaborative intelligence; Peaq Foundation Ltd., a startup building an AI-powered decentralized physical infrastructure network for the energy sector; and Combinder, a smart electricity grid startup.

Ultimately, AI-to-AI payments could become a very big business. The McKinsey Global Institute forecasts AI technologies to add $13 trillion to the world’s global economic output by 2030. By building a dedicated payments infrastructure for AI agents, Nevermined believes it can play a key role in unlocking that potential.

Featured image: SiliconANGLE/Meta AI; Nevermined