Manny Medina, the well-known founder of sales automation giant Outreach, is back with another bold bet in AI. His new venture, Paid, the AI agent ‘results-based billing’ startup from Manny Medina, raises huge $21M seed, capturing the attention of top investors eager to back a fresh approach to the AI economy.
Image Credits:Paid
Paid just closed an oversubscribed $21.6 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. This follows a €10 million pre-seed raised in March, bringing Paid’s total funding to $33.3 million—a massive feat before even hitting Series A. Sources familiar with the deal put the company’s valuation at over $100 million.
What Makes Paid Different?
While most AI startups focus on building agents, Paid takes a different route. Instead of creating the agents themselves, it powers the business model behind them. Paid helps AI developers charge customers based on the real-world value their agents deliver, a concept known as results-based billing.
Medina explains it simply: Paid allows AI makers to charge for margins saved, not just for software access. That means customers only pay when AI actually drives measurable outcomes—something investors see as a game-changing approach.
Why Investors Are Paying Attention
The rise of agentic AI has sparked huge demand for better monetization models. Traditional SaaS subscriptions often fail to capture the true impact of autonomous AI systems. With Paid’s results-based billing, developers can directly tie pricing to performance.
This aligns perfectly with the industry’s shift toward outcome-driven software, making Paid a crucial infrastructure layer for the next wave of AI adoption. Investors like Lightspeed are betting that Medina’s track record—having scaled Outreach to a $4.4 billion valuation—will help Paid lead this new market.
The Bigger Picture For AI And Billing Models
Paid isn’t just building tools—it’s rethinking how AI should be commercialized in the first place. By offering a billing infrastructure tailored to AI agents, the startup positions itself at the center of the evolving AI economy.
As companies seek cost efficiency and measurable ROI from AI systems, Paid’s model could redefine how value is captured in software. If successful, it might replace flat-fee SaaS pricing with performance-based billing at scale.
What’s Next For Paid?
With fresh funding and a valuation already north of $100 million, Paid is expected to expand its platform and grow partnerships with AI developers globally. Medina’s vision is clear: build the financial rails that let AI deliver value—and get rewarded for it.
Given Medina’s history of building unicorns and the investor enthusiasm around Paid, this may be one of the most important AI infrastructure startups to watch in 2025.
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