VIA.
We are a-commerce
the protocol of the Agentic Web.
e-commerce was built for browsers.
a-commerce is built for agents.
A multi-trillion-dollar market, forming now.
The world's largest companies are openly rebuilding commerce around AI agents. This is not a forecast. It is already in their earnings calls.
VIA connects the buy side, the sell side, and the rails in between.
One protocol sits between every AI shopper and every brand store, configuring the connections, routing intent, and settling the transactions.
VIA is the protocol. Many category networks can run on top.
VIA is the Shopify of A Commerce.
Shopify turned any merchant into an internet store. VIA turns any brand into an agent-ready store.
- Built the rails so any merchant could sell online
- Fee on every transaction, plus monthly subscription tiers
- Won by being neutral: not a marketplace, not a walled garden
- Compounded into a $300B+ GMV platform over 18 years
- Builds the rails so any brand can sell through any AI agent
- Fee on every transaction, plus monthly subscription tiers
- Neutral protocol: not owned by a single AI company, not a storefront
- Positioned at the start of the commerce cycle every major platform is already building for
a-commerce is where e-commerce was in 1996.
The same three-decade curve is starting again. We are one year in.
The runway ahead of us is almost entirely unbuilt. Every previous cycle's biggest winners were the companies that built and operated the rails layer.
Commerce today is a tax on both sides.
Sellers pay to be seen. Buyers pay with their time. The attention economy is already broken. Agents will not tolerate it.
Sellers
- 30-40%Gross margin consumed by ads, marketplace fees, platform costs and transaction fees.
- NoiseCompeting against infinite low-quality listings inside walled-garden marketplaces.
- Lost dataCustomer relationships and purchase data owned by the marketplace, not the brand.
- ReturnsImpulse-driven discovery produces high return rates and unprofitable orders.
Buyers
- TimeEndless scrolling, filtering, comparison shopping to find a single right product.
- NoiseRanking algorithms optimised for advertiser spend, not buyer intent.
- TrustCounterfeits, dropshippers, fake reviews eroding confidence on every platform.
- FrictionTen logins, ten checkouts, ten shipping forms to assemble one outfit.
The incumbents are building closed rails. VIA is the neutral alternative.
|
Shopify
UCP
|
Stripe / OpenAI
ACP
|
Google
AP2
|
Perplexity
Shop
|
VIA
Protocol
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Neutral protocol
Open standards, open settlement, no walled garden
|
✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
|
Any brand, any store
Open to all merchants
|
✕ | ✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
|
Multi-assistant reach
ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and more
|
~ | ✕ | ~ | ✕ | ✓ |
|
Brand catalogue layer
Onboards and manages brands
|
✓ | ✕ | ✕ | ~ | ✓ |
|
Agent-to-agent commerce
Buy side and sell side agents
|
✕ | ~ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
|
Multi-payment stack
Crypto, card, stablecoin
|
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✕ | ✓ |
|
Open to all AI agents
Autonomous and assistant
|
✕ | ✕ | ~ | ✕ | ✓ |
|
Agent identity and trust
On-chain ID and verifiable credentials (ERC-8004, ERC-8183)
|
✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
- Assessment as of April 2026. Competitive products evolve continuously; positions reflect publicly disclosed scope at time of writing.
- Neutrality assessed on standards, settlement and access, not corporate ownership. VIA Labs operates the protocol; protocol governance and smart-contract settlement are public and unrestricted.
- VIA capabilities marked yes are either live (MCP-based assistant integration, buy-side agent commerce via RealRealGenuine) or supported by deployed primitives (ERC-8004 identity, ERC-8183 credentials, on-chain reputation). Full sell-side autonomous brand-agent rollout in progress.
Every previous cycle rewarded the neutral rails layer. Not any single bank. Not any single marketplace.
a-commerce is inevitable. Blockchain finally has its user.
Five years of web3 and DeFi infrastructure was the wrong product for humans. It is the right product for agents. Programmable money, instant settlement, sub-cent fees, on-chain identity. The plumbing already shipped. Agents are the customer it was waiting for.
- Human signature, captcha, OTP at every checkout
- Fixed minimums make sub-dollar payments uneconomic
- Batch settlement, T+1 to T+3, business hours
- KYC re-issued per merchant, no portable identity
- Programmable signing keys, machine-native authorization
- Sub-cent fees. Pay-per-API-call and per-action work natively
- Instant on-chain settlement, 24/7, global
- Portable on-chain agent identity and verifiable credentials
VIA already speaks both languages: fiat rails for liquidity, stablecoin rails for native agent settlement, and on-chain identity so agents can be trusted before they pay.
One commerce network. Three key capabilities.
VIA replaces attention with intent. A buyer's agent tells a seller's agent exactly what is wanted. The two meet, negotiate, and settle.
Two revenue lines. Both recurring. Both compounding.
A transaction fee on everything that settles through the protocol. A monthly subscription on every brand that joins.
| Tier | Monthly subscription | Transaction fee | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Growth | Entry tier | Protocol fee on settled transactions | Emerging brands, independent labels, first-time sellers on the agentic web |
| Professional | Mid tier | Protocol fee + premium features | Established brands with scale, catalogue depth, multi-market operations |
| Enterprise | Upper tier | Custom terms, priority rails | Global brands, groups and platforms requiring dedicated support and SLAs |
Subscription tiers plus a fee on every transaction. Both recurring. Both compounding.
We win by onboarding legitimate brands first.
Quality beats quantity in the early network. A small catalogue of trusted names draws buyers and agents faster than a long tail of unknowns.
Premium Fashion is the first vertical, live on VIA.
We have started here because that is where the founders have spent three decades, with direct relationships and deep industry knowledge.
- Founder and advisor network already inside the category.
- Real transactions on real inventory prove the protocol end to end.
- All verticals run on the same protocol. Premium fashion is the first move.
Operators who have already built consumer and commerce at scale.
Richard Hobbs
Three decades building and scaling consumer businesses across Asia Pacific and Greater China. Direction, strategy and final approval for VIA Labs. Running the operation day-to-day through a virtual office of AI agents alongside a tight human leadership bench.
Daniel Yen-Tin Lin
Product and technical leader pairing C-level strategy with hands-on build. End-to-end product architecture across AI, blockchain and consumer platforms. Trilingual and multicultural, translating product vision into production-grade delivery.
Advisory bench
The VIA Founder.
Decades of being a first mover in moments that defined the fashion industry. In the room before the category had a name. Built it into shape. a-commerce is the next cycle.
US$5M to lock in the 18-month head start.
The window to own the neutral rails layer of the agentic web closes fast. Capital is deployed where network lead translates directly into category lead.
Join the round.
We are building and operating the commerce protocol for the next three decades. The rails layer always gets built once. We intend to build it and run it.
Next step
How VIA works. The integrated a-commerce stack.
- MCP Server Setup. Structured catalogues, pricing and inventory made agent-readable.
- Brand Agent Configuration. Merchant agents respond to intent, quotes and negotiation.
- Seller Parameters. Pricing, availability, commissions and fulfilment terms set through VIA.
- Intent Broadcast. Purchase intent from assistants and agents reaches relevant merchants.
- Discovery and Matching. Agents discover catalogues, compare options and select.
- Response Orchestration. Back-and-forth between buyer and merchant agents, to execution.
- Purchase Parameters. Buyer budgets, approval thresholds and autonomy levels.
- Decision Execution. Agents negotiate, commit and execute orders within set parameters.
- Revenue Splits. Smart contracts auto-distribute to brand, VIA and referrer at sale.