PhotonPay has secured $40 million in a new funding round as it looks to expand its payment infrastructure for businesses.
The Hong Kong-based company said Blockchain Capital led the Series C, which also attracted new investor SBI Group. Existing backers IDG Capital, GL Ventures and Lightspeed Faction joined the round as well.
The money will go toward developing PhotonPay’s Financial Operating System, or Financial OS. The platform brings stablecoin payments and traditional fiat services together, giving businesses access to wallets, currency exchange, card payments and local clearing through one network.
PhotonPay is working on several parts of its infrastructure at once. These include multi-asset wallets, global card issuing and local clearing in key markets. The company also wants to add an execution layer for AI agents.
Its existing network already covers a range of payment services. Businesses can collect funds through local accounts in 17 markets, receive payments in more than 60 currencies and send money through over 100 payment routes. The network also supports 74 local e-wallets.
PhotonPay reported an annualized transaction volume of $65 billion in August 2026. It serves more than 200,000 businesses and holds 34 payment licences and regulatory authorizations across the Americas, Europe and Asia.
Card issuing has grown quickly too. Over the past 12 months, the company issued 4.4 million cards, 275% more than a year earlier. Its network includes partnerships with J.P. Morgan, Standard Chartered and DBS, alongside connections to local payment systems such as Pix in Brazil and SPEI in Mexico.
Keeping AI-initiated payments under control
AI agent payments are another area PhotonPay is working on. The company and Mastercard demonstrated a live transaction back in May 2026, using a tokenized PhotonPay card and Mastercard Agent Pay for authentication.
PhotonPay is now developing tools that will let developers and AI agents connect to its services. Planned support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP) is part of that work. The company is also developing a system that lets businesses set rules for payments initiated by AI agents.
They will include requirements for approvals, spending caps, and rules concerning individual transactions. The aim is to allow agents to make payments without providing them with uncontrolled access to the different company funds.
The CEO and founder of PhotonPay Lewison Chen stated that stablecoins allow for moving money internationally, though businesses still need local clearing and card processing to spend that money. JP Pi, the Chief Compliance Officer at PhotonPay, discussed the investment and regulatory work related to establishing financial services in different jurisdictions.
According to Yuanhan Li, Blockchain Capital partner, businesses are searching for payment processing providers that fulfill the payments for them across currencies, markets, and methods without requiring them to interface with several disparate services.
