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

Beldex, a privacy-focused blockchain infrastructure company, has raised $8 million in a new funding round, bringing its total capital raised to $36 million. The company is working on encryption tools aimed at artificial intelligence agents alongside its existing suite of privacy products.

The round was led by Sigma Capital, with participation from NTC, Nxgen, Digital Consensus Fund and EAK Ventures. It follows two earlier rounds from DWF Labs and Block Alpha that brought in a combined $28 million in 2023.

Vineet Budki, managing director and CEO at Sigma Capital, said the firm was drawn to Beldex’s history in the space. “What stood out to me about Beldex is its long-term conviction,” he said.

Budki said that they believe that Beldex is well positioned for the next era of Web3, which, according to him, demands privacy, an area that the company spent years building into its infrastructure.

What will the new funding build?

Beldex is working on an infrastructure layer that will allow developers to build shielded smart contracts and encrypted identities for AI agents without sacrificing performance and usability. It said that the raised capital will be deployed in that direction.

The company also said the funds will help fast-track its research into fully homomorphic encryption, which is a method of processing encrypted data without ever decrypting it. This also includes achieving the roadmap that it set for quantum-resistant consensus mechanisms and an EVM-compatible sidechain built to handle sensitive data.

Beldex also stated that it will deploy a browser extension wallet and a set of software development kits that is designed to lower the technical barrier for developers who want to add encryption to their applications.

In a company statement, Alex Mok Kong Ming, Beldex’s chief operating officer, said, “Over the past three years, Beldex has evolved from building a functional privacy ecosystem to developing a privacy infrastructure for consumers, developers and AI agents where transactions, communications, and operations are required to be autonomous and private.”

Kong Ming said that the $8 million raise gives them the resources to accelerate their vision. According to him, data exposure will become a fundamental risk as AI becomes more autonomous, stating that they are “building Beldex to address that challenge at the infrastructure level.”

Why are investors betting on privacy now?

Privacy-oriented digital assets outperformed every other sector in the crypto market in the final quarter of 2025, according to a Grayscale report.

Grayscale has also made significant investments in the privacy-focused blockchain Zcash’s $ZEC token. It is behind the Grayscale Zcash Trust, which is an investment vehicle that gives investors exposure to the $ZEC token. Grayscale is working on making it an approved spot ETF that would trade on NYSE Arca.

Venture investors, including a16z Crypto, have described privacy infrastructure as central to crypto’s next stage of growth.

At the same time, security researchers have documented a rise in incidents tied to autonomous AI agents. Research published by the Cloud Security Alliance and Token Security in April found that 65% of organizations experienced at least one security incident that was linked to an AI agent in the past year, with sensitive data exposure the most common cause.

Encryption methods like zero-knowledge proofs and fully homomorphic encryption are moving from research into production, given the threats that are about to become mainstream in the market.

How does this round fit into Beldex’s track record?

Beldex already runs a set of privacy products, including BChat, an encrypted messaging app; BelNet, a decentralized routing network; and the Beldex Browser, built for private web access. The network also operates BNS, a naming system for blockchain-based addresses, and secures its ledger through a masternode network using a proof of stake consensus model.

Afanddy Bin Hushni, the company’s chairman, said the new capital would let Beldex build privacy into products from the outset.

Husni said, “With this new $8 million capital raise, we’re finally able to start creating, building the vessel from the ground up to ensure that every byte of data, whether that’s an AI agent’s entire decision tree or a simple message, is encrypted by default before it ever hits the network.”

The company also plans to build bridges connecting its network to Ethereum, Solana, and Base as part of an effort to keep data private as it moves across different blockchains.