Crypto projects purchasing Kaito mindshare data for marketing campaigns

📌 Background

Following the tightening of X platform API costs and regulatory oversight, project teams have seen a surge in demand for quantifying community engagement and KOL influence. Founded by a Chinese team in 2022, Kaito raised $5.3 million in a seed round and $5.5 million in a Series A round in 2023, with investors including Sequoia China, Dragonfly, and Jane Street (based on public financing information). On January 4, 2026, the company officially announced an increase in access standards for all leaderboards, making mindshare a key metric for allocating marketing budgets.

👤 Target Customers

Crypto project teams, public chain ecosystem foundations, and Web3 marketing teams looking to measure and amplify community sentiment.

💰 Revenue Streams

1) Subscription fees from project teams for mindshare leaderboard data, sentiment analysis, and narrative tracking; 2) Ecosystem projects purchasing incentive budgets to be featured on Yaps leaderboards in exchange for community content exposure; 3) Post-investment scaling: project teams increase budgets based on actual consumption or conversion performance to purchase additional exposure and optimization services.

🧮 Cost Structure

AI models and computing power, indexing and data procurement from thousands of crypto information sources, token incentive pools, compliance, and operations.

🛡️ Moat

Exclusive indexing of omni-channel crypto information and a proprietary algorithmic weighting system, combined with a two-sided data flywheel formed by project incentives and a creator network.

🔑 Keys to Success

• Algorithmic weighting for the identification and penalization of low-quality, bot-generated content
• Stable renewal rates for project incentive budgets

⚠️ Risks

• Token price volatility eroding user incentive motivation
• Data compliance and API authorization risks

🏢 Cases

• Berachain utilizes Kaito as long-term narrative infrastructure, leveraging algorithms and intelligent follower weighting to maintain long-term mindshare
• Kaito has secured over $10 million in total funding from institutions such as Dragonfly and Sequoia

📊 SWOT Analysis