Cryptoupdated 2h ago2 min read
Tether Joins AIsa Seed Extension Round With HIVEN, Funding Tops $9 Million
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Seed extension completed; total funding exceeds $9 million. Tether and HIVEN joined as strategic investors in the round.
9 outlets told this the same way.
Tether backs AIsa
Tether joined as a strategic investor in San Francisco-based AIsa, an AI agent payment infrastructure startup that supports data purchasing and payments for enterprise artificial intelligence agents. AIsa said it completed a seed extension round with Tether and HIVEN joining as strategic investors on the 15th (local time), and the round pushed AIsa’s cumulative funding to more than $9 million (approximately 12 billion won). AIsa described its platform as integrating resource discovery, access, and transactions into a single governance-based usage metering network that connects enterprise agents to external data, AI search, models, APIs, software tools, and industry-specific services.
Jordan Liu, founder and CEO of AIsa, said in a statement, "Enterprise AI agents need trustworthy information, useful tools, and controllable transaction systems." Jordan Liu added, "Our goal is to enable agents to discover, use, and pay for resources worldwide while enterprises maintain control over permissions and spending."
Governed payments, metering
AIsa said fragmented provider integration methods and billing systems make it difficult for enterprise AI agents to combine multiple external resources at scale, because accessing each service and paying for it is not standardized. AIsa said its network handles usage metering, billing, and settlement all at once when an agent discovers and uses a needed service. AIsa said enterprises can set access permissions, budgets, spending limits, and approval procedures for each agent, while also reviewing all transaction records.
Jordan Liu framed the investment as enabling agents to discover, access and pay for resources globally while giving enterprises full control, saying, "Our vision is to build the infrastructure that enables agents to discover, access and pay for resources globally, while giving enterprises full control over permissions, spending and transactions." AIsa also said stablecoins are emerging as a natural settlement layer for the agent economy, and it described an enterprise research agent purchasing microservices at US$0.001 per API call.
Tether’s AI payments push
Tether’s investment in AIsa was interpreted as part of a broader push to deploy capital accumulated from its stablecoin business into AI infrastructure, with stablecoins positioned as programmable payment instruments for the AI agent economy.
Tether previously announced on July 31 that it recorded $1.5 billion (approximately 2 trillion won) in net operating profit in Q2, driven by interest income from its U.S. Treasury holdings and repurchase agreements (repos).
AIsa’s backers list includes Alibaba, Tribe Capital, Sumitomo Corporation, Draper Associates, and Sejong Capital, and AIsa said it is headquartered in San Francisco.
AIsa said it is accelerating the transition from AI assistants to agents that operate autonomously in production environments, and it said its platform includes usage tracking, billing and settlement alongside controls for permissions, budgets, and transaction approvals.
Paolo Ardoino linked the investment to users needing control over what automated agents spend as those systems take on more responsibilities, and he said, "users need control over what automated agents spend as those systems take on more responsibilities."