/industry-wired/media/agency_attachments/2024/12/04/2024-12-04t130344212z-iw-new.png)
/industry-wired/media/agency_attachments/2024/12/04/2024-12-04t130332454z-iw-new.jpg)
/industry-wired/media/post_attachments/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Visa-Invests-100M-in-Companies-that-Use-AI-to-Create-New-Content.jpg)
Visa's $100M investment boosts AI-driven content creation firms, revolutionizing the digital content
Visa announced today that it will invest $100 million in firms developing generative AI technologies and applications "that will impact the future of commerce and payments." The investment will be made through Visa Ventures, the card company's global corporate investment arm that was established in 2007.
Visa claims that it has been a "pioneer of AI use in payments" since 1993. Generative AI is a new branch of AI that can create text, graphics, or other content based on text prompts, by learning from large amounts of existing data.
According to a written statement by Jack Forestell, the chief product and strategy officer of Visa, generative AI will soon have a significant impact on commerce and payments, besides tasks and content creation. He said that this technology will change how people live and work in the future.
David Rolf, the CEO of Visa Ventures, told TechCrunch via email that generative AI could be "one of the most transformative technologies of our time". He also said that Visa Ventures "had a lot of flexibility" in terms of the number and size of investments it would make from the new fund.
Rolf said that the industry was still in its early stage, so they would make smaller investments of a few $M. However, he also said that they could make larger investments if they had a strong reason to do so. He said that Visa was especially interested in companies that used GenAI to solve real problems in commerce, payments, and fintech.
He also said that both B2B payment processes and infrastructure that could affect commerce significantly were included. He said that they were looking for companies at all levels of the stack, from data organization for GenAI to user experiences at work or in their personal lives.
He said that Visa could enable companies to address the next set of challenges to further unlock commerce and that this was a way for them to connect with those startups. He said that one of the most important factors they assessed was how well these companies practiced responsible AI use according to Visa's regulations. Marie-Elise Droga, who became Visa's new head of fintech late last year, joined the company in August. She said that her team "often collaborated" with the Visa Ventures team, acting as a scouting engine for Visa's venture arm.