PayPal and General Catalyst Lead $18M Investment in Kite AI for Agentic Web Infrastructure

PayPal and General Catalyst lead $18 million investment in AI blockchain startup Kite

The company announced on Tuesday an $18 million fundraise led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. Participants in the Series A included 8VC, Samsung Next, and Alumni Ventures, among others. Chi Zhang, cofounder and CEO of Kite, declined to disclose her startup's valuation. She also declined to specify whether the raise was purely for equity or token warrants, which are promised tranches of a yet-to-be-released cryptocurrency. The Series A follows a previously undisclosed seed round. The company has raised $33 million in total. "The normal way for us to do shopping at the moment is we go to the Amazon website or Shopify store and shop across the store, find the products," Zhang told Fortune. "But in the future, it's all going to be automated. So we won't need to leave, let's say, Perplexity, or ChatGPT." Kite's $18 million raise follows a wave of hype for AI agents. Large language models like OpenAI's GPTs or Google's Gemini are akin to big brains that can generate responses in text to human queries. Traditionally, these models are general purpose and have sat on servers that don't have direct contact with other applications online. Now, more and more developers are creating AI designed for specific use cases that can call up other applications on one's device or across the internet. Some companies, like Cursor, have created agents optimized for writing code. Others have created AI shopping agents, which can peruse items on, say, Amazon and give users options of what to buy. "If you look at the agentic level of activities, it's been, I would say, very small and experimental in nature," Alan Du, a partner at PayPal Ventures, told Fortune. "I think there's a lot more infrastructure level building that still needs to happen in order for agents to truly become the transformative force that it's sort of destined for." Formerly known as Zettablock, Kite aims to build that infrastructure. Zhang, who has a doctorate in statistics from the University of California, Berkeley, envisions an internet where AI agents interact with each other without humans in between. She believes that, for AI agents to trust one another, there needs to be a shared database that identifies one, for example, as truly a representative of Amazon and another as one from OpenAI. Blockchains, which are decentralized databases that no one controls, are the solution, she thinks, which is why Kite is building a blockchain for AI. One of her company's first projects is to build a means through which users can ask ChatGPT to find them, say, t-shirts from a store using Shopify and purchase the items -- all through text. "I'm very excited about the future, rather than worried about competition at the moment," Zhang said, "because it's just at the very beginning of the of the agentic era."

PayPal Ventures backs Kite AI with $18M to power AI agents

Decentralized AI infrastructure provider Kite AI raised $18 million in its Series A funding round led by PayPal Ventures, bringing total cumulative funding to $33 million. According to an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Tuesday, other investors in the company include 8VC, Samsung Next, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Hashed, HashKey Capital, Avalanche Foundation, LayerZero, Animoca Brands and more. In February, Kite launched the testnet of its AI-centric layer-1 blockchain, based on Avalanche (AVAX), aiming to enhance scalability and data processing while providing centralized coordination for artificial intelligence (AI) workflows. Kite aims to leverage distributed infrastructure to power agentic AI infrastructure, envisioning AI agents as a new user category in the Web3 ecosystem. AI agents are autonomous software programs that can perceive their environment, make decisions, and take actions to achieve goals without constant human intervention. Kite launched AIR, a system that allows AI agents to authenticate and transact independently with programmable identities, native stablecoin payments and policy enforcement on a dedicated blockchain. AIR comprises two components: an Agent Passport, which provides identity services with operational guardrails, and an Agent App Store, which offers agents custom services, data sources and commerce tools, and allows them to pay for these services. A Kite representative explained that Passport "creates a multi-layered identity system where each participant -- users, agents, and sessions -- has distinct cryptographic identities that form a chain of trust." This purportedly ensures that all actions can be cryptographically traced back to the point of origin. Related: Agentic AI project Eliza Labs sues Elon Musk's xAI Kite co-founder and CEO Chi Zhang explained that the team believes autonomous agents will be "the dominant [user interface] for the future digital economies." He said that to function, such agents need structured and verifiable data, and providing that was the first step. Now it is time for identity, trust and programmable payments that are purpose-built for AI agents: "Today's human-centric systems are too rigid and brittle for swarms of agents conducting micro-transactions at machine speed." Zhang said that using publicly available application programming interfaces (APIs), PayPal or Shopify merchants "can opt in through the Kite Agent App Store and become discoverable to AI shopping agents." Purchases made in this ecosystem are settled onchain and transparent, leveraging stablecoins. The team is working on additional integrations across commerce, finance and data platforms. Talking to Cointelegraph, a Kite representative explained that "PayPal is a formal partnership in pilot phase, Shopify is an API integration in pilot phase." Alan Du, partner at PayPal Ventures, said Kite is "the first real infrastructure that is purpose-built for the agentic economy." He added that payments are a challenging technical gap for AI agent systems and "Kite bridges this critical gap by providing stablecoin-based, millisecond-level settlement." Steve Everett, head of global market development at PayPal's crypto and digital assets department, said such systems allow for "a truly global, automated economy where people, enterprise and machine can interact with ease and trust." Related: The future belongs to those who own their AI Enthusiasm for AI agents capable of handling crypto transactions and Web3 interactions is steadily growing. Coinbase development team members Kevin Leffew and Lincoln Murr recently said that such agents are about to become Ethereum's "biggest power users." Still, how AI agents interact with other systems fundamentally differs from how humans interact with them, and their capabilities significantly differ from those of the average human. For this reason, considerable effort is being invested in developing purpose-built infrastructure and middleware that enables AI agents to interact with complex systems, including Web3 infrastructure. Adrian Brink, co-founder of Web3's AI agent infrastructure firm Anoma, recently argued that such systems require intent-based blockchain infrastructure. In this context, intents are user-defined goals or desired outcomes expressed at a high level, which blockchain and agent systems interpret and execute by automatically determining the necessary actions and transactions. Some AI-agent-based systems are already seeing large-scale adoption in Web3. Data from earlier this month shows that Clanker, a decentralized application (DApp) built around an artificial intelligence agent that creates memecoins based on prompts, has generated over $34.4 million in fees for its users. "Clanker is an AI that launches crypto tokens for you," the DApp's website said. "Give it a name and symbol, and it handles deployment, market creation, and fee sharing automatically."

PayPal leads funding round in agentic AI firm Kite

This content has been selected, created and edited by the Finextra editorial team based upon its relevance and interest to our community. PayPal was joined by General Catalyst, 8VC, Samsung Next, Alumni Ventures, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Avalanche Foundation, GSR Markets, LayerZero, Hashed, HashKey Capital, Animoca Brands, Essence VC, and Alchemy. The new financing brings total cumulative funding for the vendor to $33 million. The company, formerly known as Zettablock, recently launched Kite Agent Identity Resolution, a product that enables autonomous agents to authenticate, transact, and operate independently in real-world environments. The system delivers programmable identity, native stablecoin payment, and policy enforcement on a blockchain optimised for autonomous agents. Kite AIR includes two core components: Agent Passport, a verifiable identity with operational guardrails; and Agent App Store, where agents can discover and pay to access services such as APIs, data, and commerce tools. It is live today through open integrations with popular commerce platforms like Shopify and PayPal. "From the beginning, we believed autonomous agents would be the dominant UI for the future digital economies. To function, they need structured and verifiable data, That was our first step," says Chi Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Kite. "Next come identity, trust, and programmable payments. Today's human-centric systems are too rigid and brittle for swarms of agents conducting micro-transactions at machine speed. Kite AIR solves that." Today, using publicly available APIs, any PayPal or Shopify merchant can opt in through the Kite Agent App Store and become discoverable to AI shopping agents. Purchases are settled on-chain with full traceability, using stablecoins and programmable permissions. Alan Du, Partner at PayPal Ventures, comments: "Kite is the first real infrastructure that is purpose-built for the agentic economy. Payment has proven to be a challenging technical gap. Solutions like virtual cards provide only short-term workarounds. Latency, fees, and chargebacks further complicate things. Kite bridges this critical gap by providing stablecoin-based, millisecond-level settlement with low transaction fees and no chargeback fraud risks. This enables new economic models such as agent-to-agent metered billing, micro-subscription, and high frequency trading."

PayPal-Backed Kite Raises $18 Million for Agentic Web | PYMNTS.com

By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. "Formerly known as Zettablock, Kite leverages years of experience in distributed infrastructure systems to bring forth a new architecture purpose-built for the agentic web," PayPal said in a news release Tuesday (Sept. 2). "The team previously built large-scale, real-time data infrastructures serving decentralized networks like Sui, Polygon, Chainlink, and EigenLayer. Kite is built directly on that foundation to serve a new breed of users: agents." The funding round was co-led by General Catalyst, with participation by several other investors. The release noted that Kite recently introduced Kite Agent Identity Resolution, or "Kite AIR," a solution that allows autonomous agents to authenticate, transact and function independently in real-world environments. Kite AIR is made up of two core components: Agent Passport, a verifiable identity with operational guardrails; and Agent App Store, where agents can discover and pay to access services like application programming interfaces (APIs), data, and commerce tools. PayPal and Shopify merchants can, using publicly available APIs, access the Kite Agent App Store to become discoverable to artificial intelligence (AI) shopping agents. Purchases are settled on-chain with "full traceability, using stablecoins and programmable permissions," the release said, noting that Kite is also building additional integrations for commerce, finance and data platforms. "From the beginning, we believed autonomous agents would be the dominant UI for the future digital economies. To function, they need structured and verifiable data, that was our first step," said Chi Zhang, Kite's co-founder and CEO. "Next come identity, trust, and programmable payments. Today's human-centric systems are too rigid and brittle for swarms of agents conducting micro-transactions at machine speed. Kite AIR solves that." Writing about the rise of AI agents earlier this year, PYMNTS noted that as these agents grow in power, so too do the associated risks. As opposed to traditional AI systems with deterministic outputs, agentic AI is probabilistic, non-linear and unpredictable by nature, which can increase the governance burden. "This isn't a technical upgrade. It's a governance revolution," Kathryn McCall, chief legal and compliance officer at Trustly, said in an interview with PYMNTS earlier this year. "You're messing with people's money here." "You've got to treat these AI agents as non-human actors with unique identities in your system. You need audit logs, human-readable reasoning and forensic replay," McCall added. "Can your agent initiate invoice creation but not approve disbursement without human review? What's the scope? What are they allowed to do and what are they not allowed to do?"

Kite raises $18M in Series A funding, securing total funding to $33M to build the base layer for agentic web

Kite Agent Identity Resolution, or "Kite AIR" - a pioneering solution that enables autonomous agents to authenticate, transact, and operate independently in real-world environments. Kite, a company building the foundational trust infrastructure for the agentic web, today announced that it has raised $18 million in Series A funding, bringing total cumulative funding to $33 million. The round was led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. Other investors in the company include 8VC, Samsung Next, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Hashed, HashKey Capital, Dispersion Capital, Alumni Ventures, Avalanche Foundation, GSR Markets, LayerZero, Animoca Brands, Essence VC, and Alchemy. Formerly known as Zettablock, Kite leverages years of experience in distributed infrastructure systems to bring forth a new architecture purpose-built for the agentic web. The team previously built large-scale, real-time data infrastructures serving decentralized networks like Sui, , Chainlink, and EigenLayer. Kite is built directly on that foundation to serve a new breed of users: agents. The company recently launched Kite Agent Identity Resolution, or "Kite AIR" - a pioneering solution that enables autonomous agents to authenticate, transact, and operate independently in real-world environments. The system delivers programmable identity, native stablecoin payment, and policy enforcement on a optimized for autonomous agents. Kite AIR includes two core components: Agent Passport, a verifiable identity with operational guardrails; and Agent App Store, where agents can discover and pay to access services such as APIs, data, and commerce tools. It is live today through open integrations with popular commerce platforms like Shopify and PayPal. "From the beginning, we believed autonomous agents would be the dominant UI for the future digital economies. To function, they need structured and verifiable data, That was our first step," said Chi Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Kite. "Next come identity, trust, and programmable payments. Today's human-centric systems are too rigid and brittle for swarms of agents conducting micro-transactions at machine speed. Kite AIR solves that". Today, using publicly available APIs, any or Shopify merchant can opt in through the Kite Agent App Store and become discoverable to AI shopping agents. Purchases are settled on-chain with full traceability, using and programmable permissions. Kite is also actively building additional integrations across commerce, finance, and data platforms. "Kite is doing the foundational work we believe will define how agents operate tomorrow," said Marc Bhargava, Managing Director at General Catalyst. "They are building the rails for the machine-to-machine economy." "Kite is the first real infrastructure that is purpose-built for the agentic economy," said Alan Du, Partner at PayPal Ventures. "Payment has proven to be a challenging technical gap. Solutions like virtual cards provide only short-term workarounds. Latency, fees, and chargebacks further complicate things. Kite bridges this critical gap by providing stablecoin-based, millisecond-level settlement with low transaction fees and no chargeback fraud risks. This enables new economic models such as agent-to-agent metered billing, micro-subscription, and high frequency trading." That vision is shared by industry leaders working on the future of programmable payments and agentic commerce. "Kite's foundational trust infrastructure together with the benefits of a well-regulated stablecoin for agentic payments will create unprecedented opportunities," said Steve Everett, Head of Global Market Development, PayPal Crypto and Digital Assets. "Enabling simultaneous, atomic settlement, governed by smart contracts that allow for real-time tracking and auditing across highly performant blockchain protocols will be the killer combination that delivers the promises of programmable payments in the exciting frontier of agentic commerce. This opens the door for a truly global, automated economy where people, enterprise and machine can interact with ease and trust."

PayPal : Kite Raises $18M in Series A Funding To Enforce Trust in the Agentic Web

SAN FRANCISCO, September 2, 2025 - Kite, a company building the foundational trust infrastructure for the agentic web, today announced that it has raised $18 million in Series A funding, bringing total cumulative funding to $33 million. The round was led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. Other investors in the company include 8VC, Samsung Next, Alumni Ventures, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures, Dispersion Capital, Avalanche Foundation, GSR Markets, LayerZero, Hashed, HashKey Capital, Animoca Brands, Essence VC, and Alchemy. Formerly known as Zettablock, Kite leverages years of experience in distributed infrastructure systems to bring forth a new architecture purpose-built for the agentic web. The team previously built large-scale, real-time data infrastructures serving decentralized networks like Sui, Polygon, Chainlink, and EigenLayer. Kite is built directly on that foundation to serve a new breed of users: agents. The company recently launched Kite Agent Identity Resolution, or "Kite AIR" - a pioneering solution that enables autonomous agents to authenticate, transact, and operate independently in real-world environments. The system delivers programmable identity, native stablecoin payment, and policy enforcement on a blockchain optimized for autonomous agents. Kite AIR includes two core components: Agent Passport, a verifiable identity with operational guardrails; and Agent App Store, where agents can discover and pay to access services such as APIs, data, and commerce tools. It is live today through open integrations with popular commerce platforms like Shopify and PayPal. "From the beginning, we believed autonomous agents would be the dominant UI for the future digital economies. To function, they need structured and verifiable data, That was our first step," said Chi Zhang, Co-Founder and CEO of Kite. "Next come identity, trust, and programmable payments. Today's human-centric systems are too rigid and brittle for swarms of agents conducting micro-transactions at machine speed. Kite AIR solves that." Today, using publicly available APIs, any PayPal or Shopify merchant can opt in through the Kite Agent App Store and become discoverable to AI shopping agents. Purchases are settled on-chain with full traceability, using stablecoins and programmable permissions. Kite is also actively building additional integrations across commerce, finance, and data platforms. "Kite is doing the foundational work we believe will define how agents operate tomorrow," said Marc Bhargava, Managing Director at General Catalyst. "They are building the rails for the machine-to-machine economy." "Kite is the first real infrastructure that is purpose-built for the agentic economy," said Alan Du, Partner at PayPal Ventures. "Payment has proven to be a challenging technical gap. Solutions like virtual cards provide only short-term workarounds. Latency, fees, and chargebacks further complicate things. Kite bridges this critical gap by providing stablecoin-based, millisecond-level settlement with low transaction fees and no chargeback fraud risks. This enables new economic models such as agent-to-agent metered billing, micro-subscription, and high frequency trading." That vision is shared by industry leaders working on the future of programmable payments and agentic commerce. "Kite's foundational trust infrastructure together with the benefits of a well-regulated stablecoin for agentic payments will create unprecedented opportunities," said Steve Everett, Head of Global Market Development, PayPal Crypto and Digital Assets. "Enabling simultaneous, atomic settlement, governed by smart contracts that allow for real-time tracking and auditing across highly performant blockchain protocols will be the killer combination that delivers the promises of programmable payments in the exciting frontier of agentic commerce. This opens the door for a truly global, automated economy where people, enterprise and machine can interact with ease and trust." Kite's founding team brings unmatched expertise across the three pillars required to power the agent economy: blockchain protocol engineering, large-scale data infrastructure, and applied AI. CEO Chi Zhang holds a PhD in AI from UC Berkeley and led core data products at Databricks. CTO Scott Shi built real-time AI infrastructure at Uber, was a founding engineer on Salesforce Einstein AI. Kite's team holds over 30 patents and publications at top conferences like NeurIPS and ICML. The broader team includes engineers and researchers from Uber, Databricks, Salesforce, and NEAR, with academic roots at UC Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, Oxford, and the University of Tokyo. Kite is building the foundational infrastructure for agentic internet. Its platform provides autonomous agents with cryptographic identity, programmable permissions, and native access to stablecoin payments. By enabling agents to transact, coordinate, and operate independently, Kite is creating the trust transaction layer for the agentic internet. Learn more: gokite.ai | docs.gokite.ai General Catalyst is a global investment and transformation company that partners with the world's most ambitious entrepreneurs to drive resilience and applied AI. We support founders with a long-term view who challenge the status quo, partnering with them from seed to growth stage and beyond. With offices in San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Berlin, Bangalore, and London, we have supported the growth of 800+ businesses, including Airbnb, Anduril, Applied Intuition, Commure, Glean, Guild, Gusto, Helsing, Hubspot, Kayak, Livongo, Mistral, Ramp, Samsara, Snap, Stripe, Sword, and Zepto. For more: generalcatalyst.com, @generalcatalyst PayPal Ventures is the global corporate venture arm of PayPal. We invest for financial return in six areas of high strategic relevance to PayPal, including fintech, payments, commerce enablement, artificial intelligence, blockchain & cryptocurrency, and regulatory/cyber technology. Through the expertise, experience, and vast network of PayPal Ventures - and the companies we invest in - we are helping to bring transformative solutions to market faster. For more information, please visit: https://www.paypal.vc.