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

In a strategic funding round, KAIO, a tokenization firm regulated by Abu Dhabi, has raised $8 million with the support of Tether and several other prominent investors from the crypto and institutional spheres. This investment brings KAIO's total funding to $19 million, with new participants 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. The company has successfully tokenized products from major firms like BlackRock, Brevan Howard, and Hamilton Lane, making these products accessible through blockchain-based systems. With this new investment, 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 aims to lower the barriers to entry for investors, with minimum investments starting at $100 for eligible users, significantly lower than the typical thresholds for institutional funds. The involvement of Tether, the issuer of the most widely used stablecoin USDT, ties this model to stablecoin flows, with the potential to channel liquidity into regulated investment products. According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, "KAIO's unique position opens up new avenues for capital formation and investment by bringing institutional-grade assets onto the blockchain and making them more widely accessible, thereby expanding participation in global financial markets." 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 processed over $500 million in transactions.