EMB: Sept. 2, 12:30 UTC

Artificial intelligence (AI) company Kite raised $18 million to expand its platform for enabling autonomous agents to transact with stablecoins.

The round, co-led by General Catalyst and PayPal Ventures, brings the San Francisco-based startup’s cumulative funding to $33 million, according to an emailed announcement on Tuesday.

Formerly known as Zettablock, Kite is building infrastructure for what it calls the “agentic web,” where AI agents conduct microtransactions and negotiate services. Its newly launched Kite AIR (Agent Identity Resolution) provides agents with verifiable identities, policy guardrails and programmable payment rails.

The company plans to use the money from the Series A round to give agents the tools to interact at machine speed.

Through integrations with Shopify and PayPal, any merchant can opt to become discoverable by AI shopping agents. Purchases are settled on-chain using stablecoins to remove the high transaction fees that can burden traditional payments.

Stablecoins could form a critical component of unlocking new economic models with AI, through allowing split-second settlements and low fees, thereby enabling agent-to-agent billing and microsubscriptions.

Kite said it plans to expand integrations across commerce, finance and data platforms, while positioning itself as the default stablecoin payment layer for autonomous agents.

Read More: USD.AI Raises $13M to Expand GPU-Backed Stablecoin Lending