Circuit & Chisel Secures $19.2 Million Seed Funding to Launch ATXP Agentic Payments Protocol

Circuit & Chisel, a new startup founded by former Stripe executives, has successfully secured $19.2 million in seed funding to launch its innovative web-wide protocol, ATXP. This new protocol is designed to enable AI agents to autonomously handle the entire commerce lifecycle, from discovery to payment, without human intervention. The funding round saw participation from prominent investors including Primary Venture Partners, ParaFi Capital, and Stripe.

The company's CEO, Louis Amira, previously Stripe's Head of Crypto & AI Partnerships, expressed a bold vision for the future of AI. "If Circuit & Chisel pulls it off," stated J.J. Colao in a recent tweet referencing Amira's belief, "we’ll start to see a plethora of new AI agents, similar to the rise of iOS apps after the launch of the iPhone." This sentiment highlights the potential for ATXP to unlock a new era of AI-driven commerce.

ATXP, which stands for Agentic Transaction Protocol, aims to become the foundational technology for agentic payments and movement across the internet. Co-founded by Amira and CTO David Noel-Romas, Stripe's former Head of Crypto Engineering, Circuit & Chisel is building infrastructure compatible with emerging standards like x402. The protocol is envisioned as an "HTTP for AI agent payments," facilitating instant, nested, and low-cost micropayments between AI agents, a capability traditional payment systems lack.

The $19.2 million seed round also included investments from Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, Samsung Next, and Polygon Labs, alongside a select group of angel investors. This significant backing underscores investor confidence in Circuit & Chisel's potential to orchestrate a new class of commerce where intelligent agents initiate, negotiate, and execute transactions. The launch of ATXP is expected to streamline workflows, enhance business efficiency, and foster the development of revenue-generating autonomous agents.