KAIO Secures $8 Million in Funding from Tether to Revolutionize Emirati Fund Tokenization

In a strategic funding round, KAIO, a tokenization firm based in Abu Dhabi, has raised $8 million with the support of Tether and other prominent investors in the crypto and institutional spaces. This investment brings KAIO's total funding to $19 million, with new participants including Systemic Ventures and returning investors such as Further Ventures and Laser Digital. KAIO's mission is to create infrastructure that enables asset managers to distribute their funds via blockchain, making traditional funds more accessible. The firm has successfully tokenized products from major companies like BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane, providing access to these funds through blockchain systems. With this new funding, KAIO plans to expand its offerings to include credit, structured investments, and exchange-traded funds, with the goal of launching an on-chain fund in collaboration with Mubadala Capital, an Emirati private equity firm managing $385 billion in assets. By tokenizing institutional funds, KAIO seeks to lower the barriers to entry for investors, with minimum investments as low as $100 for eligible users, significantly below the typical thresholds for institutional funds. The involvement of Tether, the issuer of the popular stablecoin USDT, will facilitate the flow of stablecoin liquidity into regulated investment products. According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, KAIO's approach 'unlocks new pathways for capital formation and investment by bringing institutional-grade assets on-chain and making them more broadly accessible, helping expand participation in global financial markets.' KAIO's platform is designed with compliance in mind, supporting regulated distribution frameworks in several 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.