Even people with no coding background are discovering that they can use Vibe Coding to build their own custom apps. That is, solutions like Lovable that turn plain language descriptions into working code.
These rapid coding tools can help you create great-looking prototypes, but getting into full-scale production can be tricky unless you figure out how to connect your application with external technology services, such as services that can send text messages via SMS, email, and process Stripe payments.
After five years as Shopify’s Director of Payments Engineering, Ilan Zerbib is building solutions that help non-tech creators solve these backend infrastructure challenges.
Last summer, Zerbib launched Sapiom, a startup developing a financial layer that allows AI agents to securely purchase and access software, APIs, data, and compute. This is essentially creating a payment system where AI can automatically purchase the services you need.
Every time your AI agent connects to an external tool like Twilio for SMS, authentication and micropayments are required. Sapiom’s goal is to make this entire process seamless, allowing AI agents to decide what to buy and when, without human intervention.
“In the future, apps will consume services that require payment. Currently, there is no easy way for agents to actually access all of this,” said Amit Kumar, partner at Accel.
Kumar has met dozens of startups in the AI payments space, but believes Zerbib’s focus on the financial layer of businesses rather than consumers is what’s truly 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 is a payment. Every time you spin up a server for AWS is a payment,” Kumar told TechCrunch.
It’s still early days for Sapiom, but the startup hopes its infrastructure solutions will be adopted by Vibe coding companies and other companies creating AI agents, eventually doing much of the work themselves.
For example, anyone who Vibe coded an app with SMS functionality wouldn’t have to manually sign up for Twilio, add a credit card, and copy the API key into their code. Instead, Sapiom handles all the work in the background, and anyone building micro-apps is billed a pass-through fee for Twilio’s services via Lovable, Bolt, or another Vibe coding platform.
Sapiom is currently focused on B2B solutions, but its technology could ultimately empower personal AI agents to process consumer transactions. Individuals will one day trust agents to make independent financial decisions, such as ordering an Uber or shopping on Amazon. While that future is exciting, Zerbib believes AI won’t magically make people buy more stuff. So he’s focusing instead on creating a financial layer for businesses.
