AEON raises $8 million led by YZi Labs to build settlement layer for AI agents

AEON, a settlement layer focused on the agentic economy, has raised $8 million in a pre-seed funding round led by YZi Labs.

The company announced Monday that the raise also included participation from investors such as IDG Capital, HashKey Capital, Stanford Blockchain Builders Fund, and Oak Grove Ventures, among others. The structure of the round and post-money valuation were not disclosed.

With the new funding, AEON said it aims to build the "financial backbone required for a new economic paradigm" by developing a settlement layer designed to support AI agent-to-agent interactions.

The company launched its first AI payment product in May, which it said enables AI agents to connect with more than 50 million real-world merchants globally. 

AEON has also partnered with BNB Chain to launch the x402 Facilitator, a product built natively on BNB Chain infrastructure. The tool enables verifiable transactions, onchain settlement, and immutable receipts for service providers within the BNB ecosystem, the company said.

"As production relations shift toward an economy powered by autonomous agents and value exchange between AIs, we believe a settlement layer built for the agentic economy will emerge and this economic paradigm needs its own financial foundation," said Eddie Li, CEO and co-founder of AEON. 

"This funding empowers us to accelerate that mission, advancing our settlement layer built for AI, and deepening collaboration with ecosystem partners like Coinbase and BNB Chain," Li added.

AI agentic tools have become an increasingly prominent theme in the crypto industry. Last week, MoonPay said it had acquired Dawn Labs and was launching an AI-powered tool designed to help "non-technical users" craft prediction-market trading strategies.