firmly, a Seattle company that helps merchants sell through AI agents and other online channels, raised a $15m Series A on 5 November 2026. Squarepoint Capital led the round, and J.P. Morgan Payments, Mastercard and Samsung NEXT took part as strategic investors, according to the company's press release.
Alumni Ventures, ARK Invest, Benhamou Global Ventures, Granada Funds, Hike Ventures, The Mercantile Companies and Versus Ventures also invested. firmly said its total funding is now about $20m. No valuation was disclosed.
“AI is quickly creating new storefronts for commerce, but merchants cannot build a new integration every time one emerges.”Kumar Senthil, Co-Founder and CEO, firmly
What firmly does
firmly's main product, firmly Connect, is a no-code platform that lets merchants connect to AI agents, marketplaces, social networks and shoppable ad platforms. PYMNTS reported that it plugs into a merchant's existing commerce infrastructure and presents the catalogue, product pages and checkout to AI channels through one standardised connection. The merchant stays merchant of record and keeps its payment provider, customer relationships and data.
The company says the platform can reach more than 11 million merchants representing over $900bn in gross merchandise value. That figure comes from firmly itself.
Alongside the round it launched Ask Agent, a conversational shopping tool for merchant websites. According to the release, Ask Agent offers natural-language product discovery using the merchant's live catalogue, pricing and inventory, plus in-chat checkout, loyalty, cross-sell and post-purchase support. It can be added with a single line of JavaScript. firmly reported conversion gains of up to 18% and average order value gains of up to 23% in early deployments; these are company figures, and PYMNTS noted that no sample sizes or methodology were given.
The market firmly is aiming at
PYMNTS pointed out that standards for agents to buy from merchants, such as Google's Universal Commerce Protocol and Mastercard's Agent Connect, are still being adopted and remain fragmented. It reported that Mastercard named firmly a partner when it launched Agent Connect in September. firmly's argument is that merchants should not have to build a new integration each time a new channel appears.
Kumar Senthil, co-founder and chief executive, said AI is quickly creating new storefronts for commerce, but merchants cannot build a new integration every time one emerges. Damien Balsan, co-founder and president, said that whether a shopping experience is human-led or agent-led, merchants need one reliable connection to all of it.
What the money is for
The company said the capital will speed up firmly Connect's global growth, bringing more merchants and more destinations, including AI, marketplace, social and shoppable-ad channels, onto its infrastructure.
The release also cited analyst expectations that US AI-driven retail traffic will grow 130% year over year this holiday season. As that comes from the company's own release, it is not independent data. The sources do not give a founding year, a headcount or an itemised list of earlier rounds; subtracting this round from the stated total implies roughly $5m raised before, but no source says so directly.
Company website: firmly.ai