X Pay, a payment infrastructure provider for AI agents and APIs built on the open x402 standard, has secured $1 million from nine investors, including DCI, Skyland Ventures, Zerra Ventures and Dubai Blockchain Lab. Former OKX Chief Operating Officer Andy Cheung, who now runs K25.ai, has joined as an advisor.
The company addresses a growing gap as AI agents discover and decide to use APIs but cannot pay without human-set accounts, keys and cards. X Pay’s gateway lets any endpoint quote a price, accept a signed payment and return its response in a single request, settling in USDC on Base. Agent wallet controls, including per-call ceilings, rolling budgets, approved destinations and human approval thresholds, apply before any payment is signed.
Since going live on Base mainnet in September 2026, X Pay has settled more than 50,000 payments. It charges a flat 1% of settled volume and holds no customer funds.
CEO Johnny Sluijmer said X Pay did not create x402, which Coinbase contributed to the Linux Foundation, but built the layer that turns it into an operable business, enabling millions of APIs to charge for services previously too small to monetize.
The funding will support expansion to BNB Chain and Solana, a security review, an API marketplace and EU compliance work, including MiCA preparation.
