TLDR: Circuit & Chisel, a startup founded by former Stripe executives Louis Amira and David Noel-Romas, has successfully secured $19.2 million in seed funding. The capital will be used to launch ATXP, a groundbreaking web-wide protocol designed to enable AI agents to autonomously manage the entire commerce lifecycle, from product discovery to payment, including facilitating low-cost micropayments between agents.
Circuit & Chisel, a pioneering company established by two former Stripe employees, has announced a significant milestone, raising $19.2 million in seed funding. The round was spearheaded by prominent investors Primary Venture Partners and ParaFi Capital, with notable participation from industry giants including Stripe, Coinbase Ventures, Solana Ventures, Samsung Next, and Polygon Labs.
The startup is led by CEO Louis Amira, who previously served as Stripe’s head of crypto & AI partnerships, and CTO David Noel-Romas, Stripe’s former head of crypto engineering. Their collective vision is to build the foundational technologies necessary for ‘agentic payments’ and seamless movement across the web, aligning with emerging standards such as x402.
The newly secured capital is earmarked for the launch of ATXP, a revolutionary web-wide protocol. This protocol is engineered to empower AI agents to independently handle the entire commerce lifecycle, from initial discovery to final payment, without requiring human oversight. A key feature of ATXP is its ability to facilitate low-cost micropayments between AI agents, where transactions are initiated, negotiated, and executed entirely by intelligent agents.
Louis Amira emphasized the transformative potential of this development, stating, “We are on the cusp of a huge change in how the internet works. 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.”
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Emily Man, a Partner at Primary Venture Partners, echoed this sentiment, highlighting the necessity for new infrastructure. “AI agents are increasingly navigating the web and transacting on our behalf and that requires an entirely new monetization infrastructure,” Man explained. She added, “ATXP enables instant, nested, delegated, and extremely low cost micropayments between AI agents, something that traditional payments rails can’t support.” This funding marks a pivotal step towards a future where AI agents can operate more autonomously and efficiently within the digital economy.
