Kite AI is a sovereign, EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain designed to provide foundational infrastructure for an "agentic internet." The platform aims to create a trust and payment layer for autonomous AI agents, enabling them to operate, interact, and transact securely and at scale. ^{[1] [2]}

Overview

Kite AI was developed to address the anticipated challenges of a future internet where autonomous AI agents play a significant role in communication and commerce. The project's premise is that the current internet infrastructure is "human-centric" and lacks the necessary systems for identity, trust, and scalable payments required for a machine-to-machine economy. Kite proposes a solution through a purpose-built blockchain that provides AI agents with native identity, governance, and payment capabilities. This infrastructure is intended to serve as the backbone for an "autonomous economy" or "agentic economy," where AI agents can discover, negotiate, and pay for services without human intervention. ^{[1] [2]}

The core of the platform is the Kite Chain, a Layer-1 blockchain that facilitates interoperability between different AI applications and systems. For example, it is designed to allow a large language model to communicate with a specialized e-commerce agent to execute a purchase on behalf of a user. The ecosystem includes a suite of developer tools, SDKs, and an AI agent marketplace to foster the creation and monetization of AI-driven applications. The project emphasizes the use of stablecoins for transactions, predicting that AI agents will become the largest users of such digital currencies, requiring an infrastructure capable of handling millions of instant, global micropayments. ^{[3] [4]}

History

The official X (formerly Twitter) account for Kite AI was created in October 2024. The project launched its first testnet, "Testnet Aero," around February 2025. Later, the testnet was upgraded to a new phase called "Testnet Ozone." Throughout its development, the project secured significant funding from venture capital firms and angel investors. Prior to its public funding announcement, the company raised a $15 million seed round. ^{[4] [3]}

On September 2, 2025, Kite AI announced it had closed an $18 million Series A funding round, co-led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. This brought the company's total capital raised to $33 million. The announcement highlighted the project's mission to build the foundational infrastructure for the agentic internet, focusing on unified identity, governance, and native stablecoin payments for AI agents. ^[5]

Following the funding announcement, the project continued to build out its ecosystem and technical capabilities. In October 2025, Kite AI unveiled its "Ecosystem Map," which featured over 100 partners from both Web2 and Web3 sectors. On October 16, 2025, the project announced the launch of the Kite Validator Program, an initiative to invite global validators to secure and grow the network. The following day, the team held a promotional event with its partner and investor, PayPal, to discuss their shared vision for the future of the agentic internet. ^[4]

Technology

Kite AI is built on a sovereign, EVM-compatible Layer-1 blockchain, which allows developers familiar with Ethereum to build smart contracts and decentralized applications on its network. The architecture is designed to be modular, enabling developers to use its components either independently or as a complete stack. ^[1]

Architecture

The Kite technology stack is composed of several distinct layers:

• Base Layer: This foundational layer includes the core EVM-compatible infrastructure, proprietary "KiteVM extensions," and the consensus mechanism.
• Platform Layer: This layer provides SDKs, APIs, and scalability solutions to support developers.
• Developer Tools: A suite of tools designed to streamline the process of building and launching AI agents on the network.
• Agent Ecosystem: This layer facilitates agent-to-agent interaction through components like the Model Context Protocol (MCP), agent passports, and service-level agreements (SLAs).
• Application Ecosystem: A marketplace for scaling and monetizing AI agents built on the Kite platform.

This modular design is intended to offer high throughput, scalability, and customization for developers building specialized applications. ^[1]

Consensus Mechanism

The Kite blockchain utilizes a proprietary consensus mechanism known as Proof of Artificial Intelligence (PoAI). According to the project's official materials, this mechanism is designed to drive "ecosystem alignment and sustainable growth." However, detailed technical specifications on how the PoAI mechanism functions have not been publicly released. ^[2]

Core Components

Kite AI's infrastructure is built around three core "superpowers" for AI agents, which are delivered through a set of native features and protocols. ^[2]

Agent Native Identity & Authentication

The platform provides a system for assigning a unique, verifiable cryptographic identity to AI "actors" (such as models and agents) and "assets" (like datasets and digital services). This identity system is designed to be portable and interoperable, with a reputation system linked to the owner's reputation through a "provable lineage." This feature aims to enhance traceability, provenance, and trust in AI interactions. A key component of this system is KitePass, which functions as a payment and identity layer, allowing registered agents to transact across all platforms that support the protocol. ^{[1] [6]}

Agent Native Governance

Kite offers programmable and fine-grained governance controls for AI agents. Developers can establish granular rules that define delegated permissions, usage constraints, and spending limits. This allows for the safe and controlled autonomous operation of agents, ensuring they act within predefined boundaries without constant human oversight. ^[2]

Agent Native Payments

The platform is optimized for machine-to-machine value transfer, enabling instant micropayments with near-zero transaction fees (claimed to be less than $0.000001 on the testnet). The system provides native access to stablecoins, allowing autonomous systems to discover, negotiate, and pay for services seamlessly. To standardize these transactions, Kite AI adopted the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), a protocol designed to facilitate secure payments between AI agents. ^{[7] [2]}

AI Agent Marketplace

A central component of the Kite ecosystem is the AI Agent Marketplace, also referred to as the Agentic Network or Agent Store. This marketplace allows developers to list their AI agents and APIs, making them discoverable to users and other builders. The platform is designed to enable users to employ these agents for real-world tasks such as shopping, ordering groceries, or hailing rides. Early listings on the marketplace included agents focused on Web3 data, AI infrastructure, and real-world data feeds from partners like DappLooker, Heurist, APRO, and Nubila. ^[6]

Ecosystem and Partnerships

Kite AI has established a broad ecosystem of investors, technology partners, and data providers to support the development of its agentic network.

Funding

As of September 2025, Kite AI has raised a total of $33 million in funding. This total includes a previously undisclosed seed round of approximately $15 million and an $18 million Series A round announced on September 2, 2025. The Series A was co-led by PayPal Ventures and General Catalyst. ^{[3] [5]}

Investors

The project is backed by a combination of institutional venture capital firms and individual angel investors from the technology and blockchain sectors.

Institutional Investors:

• PayPal Ventures (Lead)
• General Catalyst (Lead)
• 8VC
• Alchemy
• Alumni Ventures
• Animoca Brands
• Avalanche
• Dispersion VC
• Essence Venture
• GSR
• Hashed
• HashKey Capital
• LayerZero
• Samsung Next
• Vertex Ventures

Angel Investors:

• Evan Cheng (Co-founder & CEO, MystenLabs)
• Hao Min (VP, Circle)
• Edwina Aoki (SVP, Nasdaq; former CTO of blockchain at PayPal)
• Frank Chang (VP, Uber)
• Navin Gupta (CEO, Crystal Intelligence; former Managing Director at Ripple)
• Bohan Zhang (Member of Technical Staff, OpenAI)
• John Liu (Head of Product, AWS)
• Grigore Rosu (Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
• Haiyan Huang (Professor, University of California, Berkeley)
• Sriram Vishwanath (Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology)

The list of investors was confirmed through the company's official announcements. ^[5]

Technology and Data Partners

Kite AI has announced numerous strategic partnerships to build out its data and infrastructure layers. These collaborations are intended to provide AI agents on the network with access to diverse, real-time, and verified information. Key partners include:

• APRO: Provides AI-enhanced oracle infrastructure for real-world asset (RWA) and DeFi data.
• BitMind: Offers deepfake detection services to enhance trust and security on the network.
• CARV: Powers the network with Web3 gaming and identity data.
• Codatta: Serves as a knowledge layer, integrating 500 million healthcare data points.
• Irys: Provides a data layer to complement Kite's transaction layer.
• Masa: Acts as an open data store for public web data to empower social AI agents.
• Nubila: Streams verified, real-world weather and environmental data.
• Pi Squared: Integrates high-performance settlement infrastructure.
• Vishwa: Enables agentic liquidity strategies on the network.

In October 2025, the project's ecosystem map also included logos from major technology companies such as Google, Shopify, Coinbase, and Chainlink, indicating a broad range of integrations and collaborations. ^{[7] [4]}

Team

Kite AI was co-founded by Chi Zhang, who serves as the company's CEO, and Scott Shi, who is the CTO. The broader team is composed of individuals with backgrounds from prominent technology companies and academic institutions, including Uber, Databricks, Salesforce, UC Berkeley, MIT, and Harvard. ^{[4] [7]}

Adoption and Metrics

As of October 2025, the Kite AI network was in its testnet phase. The project reported combined metrics from its "Testnet Aero" and "Testnet Ozone" stages, indicating significant early activity and engagement.

Combined Testnet Metrics (as of October 13, 2025):

• Total Engaged Users: 16.7 million
• Monthly Active Users (MAU): 9.72 million
• Daily Active Users (DAU): 3.7 million
• Total Transactions: 401.6 million
• Total AI Inference Calls: Over 1.7 billion
• Total Unique AI Inference Users: 10.35 million

The project also reported a peak of 1.01 million daily agent interactions and the creation of 17.8 million "Agent Passports" on its testnet. In addition to on-chain metrics, the project has cultivated a large online community, with its official Discord server having over 653,000 members as of October 2025. ^{[4] [2] [8]}