Circuit & Chisel Unveils ATXP Protocol with $19.2 Million Seed Funding to Revolutionize Agentic Payments

The Dawn of Autonomous Commerce: Circuit & Chisel Secures $19.2 Million for ATXP Protocol

In a significant development poised to reshape the digital economy, Circuit & Chisel, a startup founded by a team of seasoned professionals from Stripe, has announced the successful closure of a $19.2 million seed funding round. This substantial investment, led by prominent venture capital firms Primary Venture Partners and ParaFi Capital, with additional participation from industry giants like Stripe, Coinbase Ventures, and Solana Ventures, signals strong confidence in the company's vision. The newly acquired capital will be instrumental in launching ATXP, a revolutionary web-wide protocol designed to enable autonomous AI agents to conduct commerce and payments seamlessly across the internet.

Foundational Technology for the Agentic Web

Circuit & Chisel is building the core infrastructure for what is being termed the "agentic web," where AI agents can operate with a degree of autonomy and intelligence previously confined to science fiction. The company's co-founders, CEO Louis Amira and CTO David Noel-Romas, bring a wealth of experience from their previous roles at Stripe, where Amira led Crypto & AI Partnerships and Noel-Romas headed Crypto Engineering. Their expertise is now focused on creating the fundamental technologies that will allow AI agents to interact and transact securely and efficiently on the internet.

The ATXP protocol is conceptualized as the "HTTP for AI-powered payments." Just as HTTP serves as the invisible backbone of modern web browsing, enabling seamless navigation between webpages, ATXP aims to provide a standardized communication layer for AI agents. This protocol will allow these agents to discover services, negotiate terms, and execute payments autonomously, thereby streamlining complex workflows and unlocking new avenues for automated commerce.

Addressing the Needs of Evolving AI Capabilities

The rapid advancement of AI models has created a growing demand for tools that can harness their capabilities. Louis Amira highlighted this gap, stating, "The models are getting better, their brains are getting smarter, but they don’t have the right tools." Circuit & Chisel aims to provide these essential tools by establishing protocols that allow AI agents to communicate with each other and with various data sources across the web. This is crucial for enabling agents to perform complex tasks, from booking travel to executing sophisticated investment strategies, without constant human oversight.

The potential impact of ATXP is far-reaching. Amira believes that its success could lead to a proliferation of new AI agents, akin to the explosion of iOS apps following the launch of the iPhone. While the protocol itself may not be a direct revenue generator, Circuit & Chisel plans to develop its own agents that will leverage this foundational technology, driving innovation and creating new business models.

Enabling Instant, Low-Cost Micropayments

A key feature of the ATXP protocol is its ability to facilitate instant, nested, delegated, and extremely low-cost micropayments between AI agents. This capability is particularly crucial as AI agents increasingly navigate the web and transact on behalf of users. Traditional payment rails often struggle to support the speed, volume, and cost-effectiveness required for such interactions. Emily Man, Partner at Primary Venture Partners, emphasized this point: "ATXP enables instant, nested, delegated, and extremely low cost micropayments between AI agents, something that traditional payments rails can