KAIO Receives $8 Million in Funding from Tether to Bring Emirati Investments onto the Blockchain

KAIO, a tokenization firm regulated by Abu Dhabi, has announced that it has secured $8 million in a strategic funding round, led by Tether and supported by several prominent crypto and institutional investors. This investment brings KAIO's total funding to $19 million, with new investors including Systemic Ventures, and repeat investors such as Further Ventures, Laser Digital, and Brevan Howard Digital. KAIO is focused on creating infrastructure that enables asset managers to distribute their funds on the blockchain. To achieve this, the company has developed tokens for products from well-known firms like BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane, making them accessible through blockchain-based systems. With this new investment, KAIO plans to expand its offerings to include credit, structured investments, and exchange-traded funds, and is set to launch an on-chain fund in collaboration with Mubadala Capital, an Emirati private equity firm with $385 billion in assets under management. By tokenizing institutional funds, KAIO aims to lower the barriers to entry for investors, with minimum investment requirements starting at $100 for eligible users, significantly lower than the typical thresholds for institutional funds. Tether's involvement in the project is expected to facilitate the flow of stablecoin liquidity into regulated investment products. According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, 'KAIO's innovative approach unlocks new pathways for capital formation and investment by bringing institutional-grade assets onto the blockchain and making them more widely accessible, helping to expand participation in global financial markets.' KAIO's platform is designed to embed compliance into its system and support regulated distribution frameworks in various jurisdictions, including Abu Dhabi, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore. To date, the company has tokenized approximately $100 million in assets and processed over $500 million in transactions.