In a strategic funding round, KAIO, a tokenization firm regulated by Abu Dhabi, has raised $8 million with the support of Tether and other prominent crypto and institutional investors. This investment brings KAIO's total funding to $19 million, with new investors such as Systemic Ventures joining the round, alongside returning investors like Further Ventures, Laser Digital, and Brevan Howard Digital. KAIO is focused on creating infrastructure that enables asset managers to distribute funds on the blockchain.
The firm has successfully tokenized products from major companies 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, a private equity firm with $385 billion in assets under management. By tokenizing institutional funds, KAIO aims to reduce 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.
The involvement of Tether, the issuer of the popular stablecoin USDT, is expected to facilitate the flow of stablecoin liquidity into regulated investment products. "KAIO's innovative approach unlocks new opportunities for capital formation and investment by bringing institutional-grade assets onto the blockchain and making them more widely accessible, which in turn helps to expand participation in global financial markets," stated Paolo Ardoino, CEO of Tether. KAIO's platform is designed with compliance in mind, supporting regulated distribution frameworks in jurisdictions such as Abu Dhabi, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore.
To date, the company has tokenized approximately $100 million in assets and has processed over $500 million in transactions.