Kite AI Raises $18M Series A Led by PayPal Ventures to Build Agentic Web Infrastructure

Kite AI, a blockchain-based artificial intelligence startup, closed an $18 million Series A funding round on September 2, 2025, led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. Other investors in the company include 8VC (Top 22 VC per The Time 2025), Samsung Next, SBI US Gateway Fund, Vertex Ventures (Temasek’s venture arm) , Hashed, HashKey Capital, Dispersion Capital (ex-Director of Samsung Next), Alumni Ventures (Top 20 American VC per The Time 2025), Avalanche Foundation, GSR Markets, LayerZero, Animoca Brands, Essence VC, and Alchemy, alongside a network of notable angel investors including Evan Cheng (Co-founder & CEO, Mysten Labs), Hao Min (VP, Circle), Frank Chang, (VP, Uber), Edwin Aoki (SVP, Nasdaq; ex-PayPal CTO of blockchain), Navin Gupta (CEO, Crystal Intelligence; ex-Ripple Managing Director), Bohan Zhang (Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI), and others. 

The San Francisco-based company, founded by CEO Chi Zhang and CTO Scott Shi, develops infrastructure for what it calls the "agentic web" - a system where autonomous AI agents can interact and transact with each other without human intervention. The platform aims to create a trust layer for AI agents operating across different applications and services, enabling users to buy products directly through ChatGPT or other chatbots.

PayPal Ventures said the investment aligns with its strategy to support companies building the future of digital commerce and payments. General Catalyst emphasized Kite's potential to address trust and verification challenges in autonomous AI systems, noting that "Kite is building this foundational trust infrastructure that can enable AI agents to interact, transact, and collaborate autonomously".

The timing reflects growing enterprise demand for autonomous AI solutions. The agentic AI market is projected to grow from $7.06 billion in 2025 to $93.20 billion by 2032, registering a compound annual growth rate of 44.6 percent during the forecast period . North America dominated the agentic AI in enterprise operations market with a 42 percent market share in 2024.

Kite's technology combines blockchain verification with AI agent orchestration, allowing autonomous agents to perform tasks like booking services, making purchases, or executing complex workflows while maintaining cryptographic proof of their actions. The company targets enterprises looking to deploy AI agents that can operate independently across multiple platforms and services while maintaining audit trails and trust verification.

The funding will accelerate Kite's product development and expand its engineering team as demand grows for autonomous AI solutions in enterprise environments. The company plans to launch its mainnet infrastructure platform in early 2026, following successful pilot programs with select enterprise clients.