Payments API for AI agents
We’re excited to launch our first product that allows your AI voice agents to accept payments easily and securely over the phone. We manage compliance, security, and fraud, letting you focus on creating great experiences. We are setting the stage for the agentic economy, starting with voice payments. Web and agent-to-agent transactions coming soon.
Active Founders
Kirthi Banothu, Founder
Enabling AI agents to make + accept payments safely. Got into building things back in 2006 with a website for Dragon Ball Z content. Ex-HFT (Optiver + DRW), built low-latency trading systems a few too many times - developed strategies for futures, cryptos, equities, and options. Had a stint in self-driving leading the onboard sensor and ml libraries team at Argo AI. Skipped half as many grades as my cofounder.
Xiaoyu Li, Founder
Enabling AI agents to make + accept payments safely. Ex-quant trader at Optiver specializing in index + equity options market-making. Started and grew a medium-frequency algorithmic trading team. Yale Medical School dropout. Skipped twice as my grades as my cofounder.
Company Launches
TL;DR
Protegee is the payments API for AI agents. Customers such as AI call centers use us to process transactions safely, increasing revenue and conversion rates.
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The problem
You’ve built a great AI voice agent, but when it’s time to take a payment and complete a transaction, things get messy.
- Compliance: Any system touching sensitive payment data must adhere to strict security standards (e.g., PCI-DSS).
- Fragmented customer experience: Current payment solutions involve handing the call to a human agent or texting a payment link, which frustrates customers and hurts conversion rates.
- Guardrails: Voice AI agents can hallucinate (we’ve seen them sell products that don’t even exist!)
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Our solution
Protegee offers an easy-to-use API that enables voice AI agents to accept payments securely. Calling us is a one-liner (seriously, it’s just a webhook).
Your agent passes the caller to us with the necessary details (items, prices, vendor). We collect the details, process transactions securely, and return the caller back to you with payment confirmation.
https://www.tella.tv/video/cm2hvf0iz000503l259wm2kir
On your dashboard, you can see calls in progress, completed, payment status, as well as a summary at the top.
Being at the infrastructure layer gives us the advantage of spotting patterns and potential threats across all our customers.
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Where we’re headed
We are going to make the following payment paradigms dead simple for agent builders to implement:
- Human → Agent
- Agent → Human
- Agent → Agent
Why? Solving these challenges will unlock the agentic economy - the start of #B2AI.
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Our offer
Email xiaoyu@protegee.ai with the code LAUNCH-YC and get 30% off your first 3 months.
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Team
Xiaoyu and Kirthi met in a math class at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy over a decade ago.
Xiaoyu: Ex-quant trader at Optiver specializing in index + equity options market-making. Started and grew a medium-frequency algorithmic trading team. Yale Medical School dropout. Skipped twice as many grades as her cofounder.
Kirthi: Got into building things back in 2006 with a website for Dragon Ball Z content. Ex-HFT (Optiver + DRW), built low-latency trading systems a few too many times - developed strategies for futures, cryptos, equities, and options. Had a stint in self-driving leading the onboard sensor and ml libraries team at Argo AI. Skipped half as many grades as his cofounder.
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