Kite AI Secures $18 Million Series A, Total Funding Reaches $33 Million

Kite, an AI blockchain startup, has successfully closed an $18 million Series A funding round, bringing its total cumulative funding to $33 million. The round was co-led by prominent venture capital firms PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst, signaling strong investor confidence in the burgeoning field of AI agents and decentralized infrastructure. This significant investment aims to accelerate the development of Kite's foundational infrastructure for the "agentic internet."

The company's core mission is to build a unified system for identity, governance, and native access to stablecoin payments, enabling AI agents to authenticate, transact, and coordinate securely without intermediaries. This infrastructure is designed to facilitate a future where autonomous agents can interact at machine speed, conducting microtransactions and negotiating services independently. Kite's platform, formerly known as Zettablock, is positioning itself as a critical layer for this evolving digital economy.

Central to Kite's offering is Kite AIR (Agent Identity Resolution), a system providing verifiable identities, policy guardrails, and programmable payment rails for AI agents. This includes an Agent Passport for identity and an Agent App Store for agents to discover and pay for services, data, and commerce tools. Through integrations with platforms like Shopify and PayPal, merchants can now become discoverable by AI shopping agents, with transactions settled on-chain using stablecoins to ensure efficiency and low fees.

Investors emphasized the strategic importance of Kite's work, with Alan Du, Partner at PayPal Ventures, stating that Kite is "the first real infrastructure that is purpose-built for the agentic economy." Marc Bhargava, Managing Director at General Catalyst, added that Kite is "building the rails for the machine-to-machine economy." The newly secured funds will be allocated towards expanding the platform, accelerating development, and fostering further integrations across commerce, finance, and data sectors.

Kite's founding team brings extensive experience in blockchain protocol engineering, large-scale data infrastructure, and applied AI, having previously built systems for decentralized networks such as Sui, Polygon, and Chainlink. The company's Ozone testnet is already live, allowing early users to engage with the platform and prepare for future agent integrations. This funding round underscores the growing interest in combining AI and blockchain technologies to create a more autonomous and efficient digital landscape.