Visa, a global leader in payments, announced a new $100 million generative AI ventures initiative; to invest in the next generation of companies focused on developing generative AI technologies and applications. Through this fund, Visa hopes to propel these companies to impact the future of commerce and payments.
The fund will be led by Visa Ventures, the global corporate investment arm of Visa. Visa Ventures has been investing in and partnering with companies driving innovation in payments and commerce since 2007. As a pioneer of AI in payments since 1993, this initiative is an extension of Visa’s leadership in AI use to drive innovation in payments, create value for partners and clients, and enable and empower global commerce.
“With generative AI’s potential to be one of the most transformative technologies of our time, we are excited to expand our focus to invest in some of the most innovative and disruptive venture-backed startups building across generative AI, commerce, and payments,” said David Rolf, Head of Visa Ventures, Visa Inc.
Generative AI, built on Large Language Models (LLMs), is an emerging subdivision of artificial intelligence. It develops artificial general intelligence capable of generating text, images, or other content from large sets of existing data when given prompts.
“While much of generative AI so far has been focused on tasks and content creation, this technology will soon not only reshape how we live and work, but it will also meaningfully change commerce in ways we need to understand,” said Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer, Visa Inc.
About Visa
Visa is a world leader in digital payments. It facilitating transactions between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and government entities across more than 200 countries and territories. It pioneered the use of AI models in payments almost 30 years ago; and has been using it to maximise value and security across the ecosystem ever since. The comapany’s investment arm, Visa Ventures, was set up in 2007. It carried forward the aim of supporting local innovation in commerce and technology.
Since the start of the year, the company has announced multiple collaborations. It has partnered with companies like Expel, Paysend, Swift, Conferma Pay, YellowPaper, and others.