People without coding backgrounds are finding that they can build their own custom apps using vibe code – solutions like Lovable that turn simple language definitions into working code.
While these informative coding tools can help create beautiful prototypes, setting them up for full production (as this reporter recently found out) can be tricky without figuring out how to connect the app to external technology services, such as those that can send text messages via SMS, email, and process Stripe payments.
Ilan Zerbib, who spent five years as Shopify’s director of payments engineering, built a solution that can eliminate these core infrastructure pain points for non-tech creators.
Last summer, Zerbib launched Sapiom, a startup that is building a financial layer that allows AI agents to securely purchase and access software, APIs, data, and computing — essentially creating a payment system that allows AI to automatically purchase the resources it needs.
Every time an AI agent connects to an external tool like Twilio for SMS, it requires authentication and a small payment. Sapiom’s goal is to make this whole process seamless, letting an AI agent decide what to buy and when without human intervention.
“In the future, applications will use services that require payments. Currently, there is no easy way for agents to access all of that,” said Amit Kumar, partner at Accel.
Kumar has met many startups in the AI payment space, but believes that Zerbib’s focus on the financial layer of businesses, rather than consumers, is what is really needed to make AI agents work. That’s why Accel is leading Sapiom’s $15 million seed round, with participation from Okta Ventures, Gradient Ventures, Array Ventures, Menlo Ventures, Anthropic, and Coinbase Ventures.
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“If you really think about it, every API call is a payment. Every time you send a text message, it’s a payment. Every time you query an AWS server, it’s a payment,” Kumar told TechCrunch.
Although it’s still early days for Sapiom, the startup hopes its infrastructure solution will be adopted by vibe-coding companies and other companies creating AI agents that will eventually be tasked with doing many things for themselves.
For example, anyone with a vibe-coded SMS-capable app won’t have to manually sign up for Twilio, add a credit card, and copy an API key into their code. Instead, Sapiom handles all of that in the background, and the person building the small app will be billed for Twilio’s services as a pass-through fee through Lovable, Bolt, or another vibe-coding platform.
Although Sapiom currently focuses on B2B solutions, its technology could eventually enable personal AI agents to manage consumer transactions. The expectation is that one day people will trust agents to make autonomous financial decisions, like ordering an Uber or shopping on Amazon. While that future is exciting, Zerbib believes that AI won’t magically make people buy more things, which is why he’s focusing on creating financial layers for businesses instead.
