- Vienna-based fintech Talentir has raised €4 million in seed funding to develop AI-powered payout systems for platforms that pay creators, freelancers, and contractors worldwide.
- The funding round was led by Redstone VC, with support from Inovia Capital, whose partners include Patrick Pichette, former CFO of Google, and eight other investors.
- Talentir currently processes daily payouts in the millions with a team of just six people and aims to reach €100 million in annual payout volume next.
Before founding Talentir, Lukas Steiner managed nightclubs and, together with co-founder Johannes Kares, created a marketplace for fractional YouTube video shares. Investors liked their understanding that platforms paying many people face big operational and compliance challenges with outbound payments.
“Accounting, reconciliation, cross-border payments — this last mile of finance was always taken for granted. It was always assumed it had to be expensive. But the tools we have now — the AI, the stablecoin rails — make it possible to genuinely rethink it,” Steiner tells Tech Funding News in an exclusive interview.
Today, the startup closed a €4 million seed round led by Redstone VC, with Inovia Capital also joining in. Inovia’s partners include Patrick Pichette, who was Google’s CFO from 2008 to 2015.
Other investors included Shapers, Tenity, NewSchool, Noia Capital, BFC, Cambrena Capital, and angel investor Mark Ransford.
The round used a SAFE structure and was oversubscribed within weeks.
The problem nobody solved
Stripe has made it easier to handle incoming payments, but sending money out remains a problem for many platforms.
Music distributors, influencer agencies, and creator marketplaces still handle outbound payments by hand. They have to track payments across different countries, handle taxes, manage currency fluctuations, and remain compliant. These jobs are manageable when there aren’t many payments, but they become much harder and more expensive as the business grows.
“A music distributor, an influencer agency, a platform — they should do what they do well. They shouldn’t have to become a fintech themselves,” Steiner says.
This gap is large and widening. The B2B payments market is expected to grow from $1.42 trillion in 2025 to $3.43 trillion by 2031, with a yearly growth rate of 15.48%. Cross-border payments could go over $156 trillion each year, but most international payout systems are still slow and expensive.
Steiner says the most common complaint in the creator industry is still: Where’s my money?
The stablecoin approach and how it changes the numbers
Talentir handles the entire outbound payment process within a single system, covering data collection, reconciliation, compliance, tax management, recipient onboarding, and payment issuance. The company started in Vienna and is registered in Switzerland.
Instead of using traditional banks, they built their settlement system on stablecoin technology. At first, people doubted this choice, but now it gives Talentir an edge in speed and cost compared to others.
“We bet early on stablecoin technologies in our backend, at a time when people still laughed at us for it. Today, we are the only provider that combines settlement in seconds, AI that operates securely within the client’s IT environment, and full legal responsibility as a regulated Merchant of Record,” Steiner notes.
Talentir stands out by using the Merchant of Record model. This means they don’t just process transactions but also handle compliance, tax filings, and recipient onboarding, so clients don’t have to. Clients still keep control of their brand, processes, and relationships with payees.
Main competitors like Tipalti and Trolley use traditional payment systems. Tipalti focuses on finance and accounts payable teams, while Trolley is an API-first platform for event-based payouts. Both take one to five days to settle payments, similar to Payoneer.
None of them uses a stablecoin system or acts as a Merchant of Record for payouts. “We are the only ones on the planet that do this. Nobody else has a full crypto backend running underneath all of it,” Steiner says.
The investors and how the funding will be used
The Inovia Capital connection came through Shapers, one of Talentir’s earliest backers.
“It clicked at the first meeting. They were there when YouTube was built from the ground up. They know the hustle, they know the finance. It took one meeting,” Steiner says of the Inovia team.
Redstone VC, the lead investor, supports fintech companies across Europe and holds a French B2B banking unicorn, Qonto, in its portfolio. Richard Würl, a principal at Redstone, said payout infrastructure is “one of the last major unsolved problems in B2B fintech” and that Talentir stands out because it combines stablecoin settlement, AI, and full regulatory responsibility. Tracxn
The new funding will help Talentir grow its AI platform, improve its Merchant of Record system, and expand internationally. The company now has six employees and plans to double that by the end of 2026. Their short-term goal is €100 million in annual payout volume, with a long-term aim of €1 billion.
“There are ways to implement yield on money that is in flight. The ultimate goal is to make payouts profitable,” Steiner concludes.
It remains to be seen if this six-person startup from Vienna can set a global standard before a big US company enters the market.
