Kite, a company developing trust infrastructure for the agentic web, said it has raised $18 million in a Series A round, bringing its total funding to $33 million.

The financing was led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst.

Other participants in the round included 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 draws on its background in distributed infrastructure systems to develop architecture tailored for the agentic web.

The team has previously built large-scale, real-time data infrastructure for decentralised networks, including Sui, Polygon, Chainlink, and EigenLayer.

Kite’s current focus is on enabling autonomous agents to operate independently in real-world environments.

The company recently introduced Kite Agent Identity Resolution, or Kite AIR, which it describes as a system that allows autonomous agents to authenticate, transact, and function with minimal human intervention.

The platform provides programmable identity, built-in stablecoin payments, and policy enforcement on a blockchain optimised for agents.

Kite AIR consists of two main elements: Agent Passport, a verifiable identity framework with operational guardrails, and Agent App Store, which enables agents to discover and pay for services such as APIs, data, and commerce tools.

The system is live and already integrated with platforms including 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”.

Kite said that any PayPal or Shopify merchant can now opt in through the Kite Agent App Store using publicly available APIs, making their services accessible to AI shopping agents.

“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.

Transactions are settled on-chain with stablecoins, offering full traceability and programmable permissions. The company added that it is also working on further integrations across commerce, finance, and data platforms.

The founding team brings experience across blockchain protocol engineering, large-scale data infrastructure, and applied AI, which Kite said are the core areas required to support the emerging agent economy.

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