KGeN Receives Strategic Investments from Jump Crypto, Accel, and Prosus Ventures, Securing a Total Funding of $43.5 Million

Following recent multi-round strategic funding and global expansion of its distribution, commercial, and loyalty stack, KGeN has now raised a total of $43.5 million to build the world's largest VeriFi™ Network—an innovative "Verifiable Distribution Protocol" designed to power advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Decentralized Finance (DeFi), and gaming.

KGeN Core Council Members Ishank Gupta (left) and Manish Agarwal (right)

KGeN, a company dedicated to building the world's largest "Verifiable Distribution Protocol" for AI, DeFi, gaming, and consumer applications, today announced the successful completion of a $13.5 million strategic funding round. This funding round was participated in by Jump Crypto, Accel, and Prosus Ventures, bringing the company's total funding to $43.5 million.

Prior to this, KGeN had announced the completion of a $20 million seed funding in January 2023 and a $10 million ecosystem funding in November 2024. This funding round comes as the company expands its protocol, business stack, and loyalty infrastructure to over 60 countries worldwide. KGeN aims to validate real users and combine their engagement, consumption, and reputation data on-chain, providing developers with a distribution layer that effectively resists bot-driven inflation while enabling users to earn rewards through their time, skills, and social networks.

Since its launch, KGeN has grown into a leader in the "Global South" region in the verifiable distribution space, with a network of 38.9 million protocol users, 6.14 million monthly active users, and 780,000 daily active users, as well as revenue partnerships with over 200 partners in the AI, DeFi, gaming, and commercial sectors. The company's annualized revenue has reached $48.3 million, with team members located across multiple regions totaling 95 individuals.

KGeN Core Council Member Manish Agarwal stated: "KGeN addresses the most core challenge in consumer growth: the issue of trust. By validating real users and transforming reputation into an asset, we are providing AI, DeFi, gaming companies, and consumer applications with a distribution channel that is both efficient and scalable."

The core of KGeN is POGE, a privacy-preserving identity and reputation framework that has currently aggregated over 876 million attributes from real user engagement and business signals. The POGE framework supports multiple products: first, Verified User Acquisition (Verified UA), achieved through biometric anchoring for high-fidelity user growth; second, an on-chain loyalty system that enhances user retention through programmable rewards; third, the decentralized business platform K-Store, which helps applications activate target users and reward behavior that creates value.

KGeN Core Council member Ishank Gupta stated, "The vision behind building KGeN is 'partner-first, protocol-driven': input is verified users, output is measurable outcomes. With POGE as the cornerstone of reputation, partners can acquire, retain, and reward precise users while enabling these users to carry and transfer their value in the open internet."

KGeN's strong growth momentum is attributed to its product stack that combines distribution, business, and loyalty. Verified UA links user identity with skills certification and real engagement, effectively reducing wasted customer acquisition costs. K-Store provides partners with a decentralized storefront and marketing tools, lowering customer acquisition costs (CAC) and increasing lifetime value (LTV) while giving back value to users. These components work together to enable AI startups to acquire high-quality human signals, DeFi protocols to reach validated traders, games to onboard highly-retained players, Web2 brands to build data-rich, verifiable loyalty ecosystems—all with on-chain proof and revenue alignment.

Chief Investment Officer at Jump Crypto, Saurabh Sharma, said, "KGeN has transformed 'distribution,' which was once merely a cost item, into an accountable record system. The combination of 'verified users, on-chain proof, and real revenue traction' equips the protocol to provide strong support for the influx of new AI and DeFi applications."

Partner at Accel, Pratik Agarwal, mentioned, "KGeN has cracked one of the fundamental challenges of consumer-facing apps in digital growth: how to efficiently identify and acquire verified users who can truly create value. Their data moat built on authenticated users and portable reputation significantly extends the utility of the protocol/platform across multiple verticals, including but not limited to providing human data intelligence for AI and engaging player traffic for consumer-facing apps. Expanding annual recurring revenue (ARR) to $48 million within just three years and pioneering a new category like VeriFi is a remarkable achievement. We are excited to support Manish and Ishank in leading KGeN into the next growth phase."

Prosus Ventures Head Jayme Kwek stated, "KGeN sits at the intersection of gaming, blockchain, and AI, pioneering a unique market position by enabling scalable and verifiable user interactions on-chain. Its architecture—combining user identity, incentive alignment, and verifiable participation—unlocks a 'work-to-participate' workflow agnostic to specific use cases. Driven by a decentralized labor pool, this workflow generates a flywheel effect of sustainable and decentralized growth for builders while creating value for users. We are honored to continue supporting this team and be part of KGeN's development journey."

About KGeN

KGeN is a "Verifiable Distribution Protocol" designed for the AI, DeFi, and gaming sectors—based on real users and real business behaviors to accelerate the growth of projects in these industries. Since its inception by global leaders in the consumer and gaming spaces, KGeN has evolved into the dominant growth engine in the 'Global South' region. With 38.9 million users, 6.14 million monthly active users, and $48.3 million in annualized revenue, KGeN offers verifiable user acquisition, on-chain loyalty programs, and decentralized storefronts through its POGE reputation framework and a global community network spanning over 60 countries.

KGeN aids AI startups in acquiring high-quality human signals, enables DeFi protocols to reach validated traders, introduces games to high-retention players, and helps Web2 brands build a verifiable loyalty ecosystem, empowering users to monetize their reputation in the open internet.