Circuit & Chisel, an innovative platform founded by alumni from Stripe, has successfully raised $19.2 million in seed funding to launch its new venture, ATXP. This ambitious web-wide protocol is designed to empower AI agents to manage the entire commerce life cycle, from product discovery to transaction completion, all without human intervention.
Leading the funding round were Primary Venture Partners and ParaFi Capital, with additional support from a host of industry leaders including Stripe, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, Samsung Next, and Polygon Labs. The investment also attracted a notable group of angel investors, such as Solana founders Anatoly Yakovenko and Raj Gokal, as well as high-profile executives from Amazon, PepsiCo, Google Cloud, and Kraken.
Matthew Prince, Co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, expressed enthusiasm for the potential impact of the ATXP protocol: "At Cloudflare, we’re committed to building an open Internet, and that’s more important than ever as AI and agents take off. ATXP could be an important protocol to help ensure agent-initiated commerce is able to succeed in a secure and trusted way."
The company is spearheaded by Louis Amira, the former Head of Crypto & AI Partnerships at Stripe, who emphasized the significance of this technology in an evolving digital landscape. "We are on the cusp of a huge change in how the internet works," said Amira. "We expect so much from AI agents in the coming years, but we don’t yet have the most fundamental technologies that will allow them to flourish within safe, agreed-upon constraints and protocols."
Co-founder and CTO David Noel-Romas, who previously led Crypto Engineering at Stripe, is instrumental in developing the core technologies behind Circuit & Chisel. Their first protocol, ATXP, is envisioned as a pivotal component of agentic payments, akin to how the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) underpins modern web navigation.
Emily Man, a Partner at Primary Venture Partners, outlined the necessity of a new infrastructure for transactions. "AI agents are increasingly navigating the web and transacting on our behalf and that requires an entirely new monetization infrastructure," Man commented. "ATXP enables instant, nested, delegated, and extremely low-cost micropayments between AI agents, something that traditional payments rails can’t support."
The development of ATXP is fueled by the belief that it will create an entirely new form of commerce. Ben Forman, Founder and Managing Partner at ParaFi Capital, stated, "Circuit & Chisel is building the core infrastructure for autonomous agent transactions, connecting agentic commerce, stablecoins, and payments into one protocol. This technology has the potential to expand agent capabilities entirely and fuel the next wave of growth in the digital economy."
The introduction of ATXP positions Circuit & Chisel as a trailblazer in the realm of AI-driven commerce, paving the way for transactions that are fully managed by intelligent agents. This transformative approach aims to streamline workflows, allowing businesses to enhance operational efficiency and catalyze a new generation of revenue-generating autonomous entities.
As the landscape of digital finance continues to evolve, the successful launch of the ATXP protocol represents a significant milestone in the integration of AI and commerce. By nurturing collaboration among top-tier technology companies, Circuit & Chisel is poised to redefine how commerce is conducted in an increasingly automated world.