The AI Voice Agent That Collects Payment Mid-Call

01 /The Concept

Voice AI agents are already negotiating deals over the phone – pitching products, scheduling appointments, even arguing on pricing. But they hit a wall the moment a customer says yes: the gap between “I’ll pay when I hang up” and actual payment is brutal. Most customers who promise to pay online afterward simply don’t.

Sales has always run on one timeless principle: strike while the iron is hot. What’s needed is the ability to take payment inside the conversation itself – confirming that payment started and then that it succeeded.

That’s exactly what Maven enables – a payment platform built specifically for voice AI agents, letting them collect payment securely and confidently without ending the call.

In practical terms, it acts as a payment-specialized voice AI agent that the primary agent can "hand off" the call to. Once the payment interaction is complete, the call is handed back – along with a success or failure result.

The customer hears a smooth handoff to a natural-sounding AI voice that asks them to provide card details verbally or enter them on the keypad. If a payment fails, Maven's agent tries an alternate payment gateway and/or prompts the customer for a different card.

Critically, the client company's AI agent never sees or stores card details – Maven handles all payment security. The model is analogous to embedding a third-party payment form on a website: the merchant doesn't touch the card data, and the payment processor handles compliance.

Just as a website payment form can be styled to match the brand, Maven lets companies customize the payment agent's voice, greeting style, tone, and language.

The platform integrates with a wide range of payment systems and AI agent-building platforms, so most companies won't face a painful integration process. For everyone else, there's Maven's API.

Maven's target customers are companies that want to collect payment at scale during phone calls: restaurants accepting takeout orders, service companies collecting deposits before dispatching a technician, professional debt collectors, and any business trying to convert outstanding invoices into actual revenue.

Maven graduated from Y Combinator last month, receiving the standard $500K investment in the process.

02 /Why It Matters

The voice AI agent market is growing fast – nearly 35% annually. This year alone, the market is expected to reach $4.4 billion, climbing to $47.5 billion by 2034.

A significant chunk of that is customer support – saving on headcount and improving service. But every company will inevitably want to generate revenue through these agents, not just cut costs.

That means finding ways to collect payment inside voice conversations – so that conversion doesn't evaporate at the end of the call. Maven is purpose-built for exactly that.

The parallel to the history of online payments is apt. The early internet was purely informational. Then it became a marketplace where every site wanted to sell something – and every site needed to embed payment capability. Voice AI is following the same arc.

Maven's prospects look strong. Even if it doesn't become the dominant payment gateway for AI agents, it's a natural acquisition target for any traditional payment processor looking to enter this space quickly – arriving with working technology and existing customers already in hand.

Zooming out, Maven represents a broader trend: giving AI agents financial instruments they can use independently – both for accepting and making payments. Startups building on that thesis include Y Combinator alumnus Locus ([covered here](/review/kogda-ne-my-im-platim-a-oni-nam)), Skyfire (which raised $9 million), and Payman (which raised $3.8 million).

03 /Opportunities

The macro direction here can be called "fintech for AI agents" – building the tools that let AI agents send and receive money, in any context and from any position.

Voice conversations are one of the most important of those contexts. Human-to-AI phone interactions are about to become extremely common, and the payment infrastructure for that channel is still being built. That's Maven's lane.

Which side of this opportunity would you come at first?