KAIO, a tokenization firm based in Abu Dhabi, has announced the successful completion of an $8 million strategic funding round, led by Tether and supported by various crypto and institutional investors. This investment brings the company'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 funds on the blockchain.
The firm has already developed tokens for products from prominent 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, an Emirati 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 for eligible users, significantly lower than the typical thresholds for institutional funds. The involvement of Tether, a leading stablecoin provider, is expected to channel liquidity into regulated investment products.
According to Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino, "KAIO's innovative approach unlocks new opportunities for capital formation and investment by bringing institutional-grade assets on-chain and making them more widely accessible, thus expanding participation in global financial markets." KAIO's platform is designed to embed compliance into its system, 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.