Skyfire, an AI-powered encrypted payment network founded by former Ripple executives, completes $8.5 million in seed round financing, with Circle and others participating

Skyfire, founded by former Ripple executives, recently announced the completion of an $8.5 million seed round of financing to provide crypto payment solutions for AI agents. Investors include USDC issuers Circle, Ripple, Gemini, and the venture capital firm of Tim Draper, a well-known Silicon Valley billionaire and Bitcoin advocate. The company has developed an open source payment system that allows autonomous AI agents to conduct various transactions on the Internet, including the purchase of data storage, creative assets, air tickets, and daily necessities. Its payment network runs on the USDC stablecoin and is currently deployed on the Polygon network, with plans to expand to other blockchains in the future. Skyfire co-founder and CEO Amir Sarhangi said that traditional payment systems cannot meet the needs of AI, and cryptocurrencies and blockchains provide 24/7 micro-transactions, low fees, and high-efficiency solutions. The company has worked with several customers, including parts manufacturers and AI infrastructure providers for automotive service centers in India, and is negotiating with multiple large language models (LLMs) to adopt USDC-based AI agent payment solutions. (decrypt)