KAIO Secures $8 Million in Funding from Tether to Tokenize Emirati Investments

KAIO, a regulated tokenization firm in Abu Dhabi, has announced an $8 million strategic funding round led by Tether and other prominent crypto and institutional investors. This investment brings the company's total funding to $19 million, with new investors such as Systemic Ventures joining existing backers like Brevan Howard Digital and Further Ventures. KAIO is developing infrastructure to enable asset managers to distribute funds on blockchain, having already created tokens for products from firms like BlackRock and Hamilton Lane. With this new investment, the company plans to expand its offerings to include credit, structured investments, and exchange-traded funds, as well as launch an on-chain fund 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 investments starting at $100. The involvement of Tether, the issuer of the popular stablecoin USDT, is expected to facilitate the flow of liquidity into regulated investment products. According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, KAIO's platform 'unlocks new pathways for capital formation and investment by bringing institutional-grade assets on-chain and making them more broadly accessible.' The company's platform is designed to embed compliance and support regulated distribution frameworks in several jurisdictions, including Abu Dhabi, the Cayman Islands, and Singapore. To date, KAIO has tokenized around $100 million in assets and processed over $500 million in transactions.