Why we invested in Kite, building the foundational infrastructure for the agentic economy
Nearly two years ago, we invested in Zettablock, a company with a clear and critical mission: to solve the escalating complexities of data fragmentation in web3. We saw a team tackling the arduous task of accessing and processing on-chain data, providing a full-stack platform that allowed developers to focus on building innovative applications instead of costly and complex data infrastructure. Our conviction was rooted in their elegant solution to a growing problem and the team’s deep expertise in building large-scale data systems.
That core conviction hasn’t changed; it has deepened. The foundational work on verifiable, real-time data infrastructure proved to be more prescient than we could have imagined. Today, the company, now known as Kite, is leveraging that very foundation to build the trust and transaction layer for the next evolution of the internet: the agentic web.
As an early investor, we’re thrilled to see the team’s progress culminate in a new $18 million in Series A funding, bringing total cumulative funding to $33 million, co-led by General Catalyst and PayPal Ventures. This milestone marks their new focus and the launch of a pioneering solution, Kite Agent Identity Resolution (Kite AIR).
Our initial thesis was that Zettablock’s solution would become crucial as blockchain scaled. It soon became clear, however, that the ultimate user of this verifiable data wouldn’t just be human developers, but autonomous agents.
As Kite’s Co-Founder and CEO, Chi Zhang, explains, “From the beginning, we believed that autonomous agents would become the dominant UI to digital economies of the future. But agents cannot function without access to structured, verifiable data. Building that foundation was the first step”.
The infrastructure Zettablock built to serve decentralized networks like Polygon, Sui, and Chainlink is now the bedrock that enables agents to “perceive the world with context, history, and provenance”. The challenge of data fragmentation they solved for developers was a precursor to solving the challenge of trust and identity for machines.
Kite is building the foundational infrastructure for a world where AI agents can securely and autonomously transact and operate. The existing web’s identity and payment systems are human-centric and too rigid for swarms of agents conducting high-frequency micro-transactions.
Kite AIR solves this directly. It is a system that delivers programmable identity, native stablecoin payment, and policy enforcement on a blockchain optimized for autonomous agents. The core components include:
Agent Passport: A verifiable identity for agents that comes with operational guardrails.
Agent App Store: A marketplace where agents can discover, pay for, and access services like APIs and commerce tools.
Kite is already live with open integrations for major platforms like Shopify and PayPal, allowing AI shopping agents to discover and purchase from stores with on-chain traceability using stablecoins.
Our initial excitement for Zettablock has transformed into a profound conviction in Kite for three key reasons:
The Mission is More Critical Than Ever. While simplifying data access for developers was a significant challenge, building the foundational rails for the entire machine-to-machine economy is an order of magnitude more critical.
The Foundation is a Unique Advantage. Kite didn’t pivot away from its mission; it evolved from it. Having already built large-scale, real-time data infrastructure gives them an incredible head start and a deep understanding of the integrity and provenance required for agents to operate safely.
The Team Was Built for This Moment. Our early belief in this team, with its members’ experience from Databricks, Uber, and Coinbase, has been fully validated. Their unmatched expertise across blockchain protocol engineering, large-scale data infrastructure, and applied AI is precisely what’s required to build for the agent economy.
We are proud to continue our partnership with Chi, Scott, and the entire Kite team. They are solving a problem that is timely and essential for the future of the internet. The agentic web is coming, and we believe Kite is building its foundational trust layer.
Andy Duong is an investment director at Samsung Next. Samsung Next’s investment strategy is limited to its own views and does not reflect the vision or strategy of any other Samsung business unit, including, but not limited to, Samsung Electronics.