Privacy blockchain Beldex raises $8 million to build encryption tools for AI agents

Beldex, a blockchain infrastructure company focused on privacy protection, raised $8 million in a new round of funding, bringing its total funding to $36 million. The company is developing encryption tools for artificial intelligence agents while continuing to offer its existing line of privacy products.

This round of financing was led by Sigma Capital, with participation from NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund and EAK Ventures. Previously, Beldex completed two rounds of financing through DWG Labs and Block Alpha in 2023, raising a total of US$28 million.

Vineet Budki, Managing Director and CEO of Sigma Capital, said the company was attracted by Beldex's long-term accumulation in the field. "What impressed me about Beldex was its long-standing belief," he said. Budki believes that Beldex is fully prepared for the next era of Web3, which, in his view, has an urgent need for privacy-which is the direction Beldex has been deeply engaged in infrastructure for many years.

Where will the new funds be used?

Beldex is building an infrastructure layer designed to allow developers to create shielded smart contracts and encrypted identities for AI agents without sacrificing performance and ease of use. The company said the newly raised funds will be invested in this direction.

The company also said the funding will accelerate its research on fully homomorphic encryption-a way to process encrypted data without decryption. At the same time, this also includes implementing the anti-quantum consensus mechanism set out in its roadmap, as well as building a side chain that can process sensitive data and is EVM-compatible.

Beldex also said it will launch a browser extension wallet and a software development kit aimed at lowering the technical barrier for developers to integrate encryption into their applications.

In a company statement, Beldex Chief Operating Officer Alex Mok Kong Ming said: "Over the past three years, Beldex has evolved from building a functional privacy ecosystem to a privacy infrastructure for consumers, developers and AI agents-in these scenarios, transactions, communications and operations need to be done autonomously and privately." Kong Ming said the $8 million financing provided them with resources to accelerate the realization of their vision. He believes that as AI becomes more autonomous, data exposure will become a fundamental risk, and said "we are building Beldex to address this challenge at the infrastructure level."

Why are investors betting on privacy now?

According to a report by Grayscale, privacy-oriented digital assets outperformed all other areas in the crypto market in the fourth quarter of 2025. Grayscale has also made a significant investment in the privacy blockchain Zcash's ZEC tokens. Its Grayscale Zcash Trust is an investment vehicle that gives investors access to ZEC tokens. Grayscale is working to advance it into an approved spot ETF and be traded on NYSE Arca.

Venture capital firms, including a16z Crypto, have described privacy infrastructure as the core of the next stage of cryptocurrency growth. At the same time, security researchers have recorded an increase in security incidents related to autonomous AI agents. A study released in April by the Cloud Security Alliance and Token Security found that 65% of organizations had experienced at least one AI agent-related security incident in the past year, with sensitive data breaches being the most common cause.

Given that these threats are about to become mainstream in the market, encryption methods such as zero-knowledge proof and fully homomorphic encryption are moving from the research stage to practical applications.

How does this round of financing fit into Beldex's development history?

Beldex already runs a range of privacy products, including the encrypted messaging application BChat, the decentralized routing network BelNet, and the Beldex browser built for private web access. The network also operates a naming system BNS based on blockchain addresses and protects its ledgers through a master node network that uses a proof-of-stake consensus model.

Chairman Afandi Bin Hushni said the new funding will allow Beldex to integrate privacy into its products from the beginning. "With this $8 million in new financing, we are finally able to create and build containers from scratch to ensure that every byte of data-whether it's a complete decision tree for an AI agent or a simple message-is encrypted by default before entering the network," Hushni said.

The company also plans to build bridges connecting its network to Ethereum, Solana and Base as part of an effort to ensure that data remains private when transmitted between different blockchains.