XAIN, a Berlin-based AI company known for partnering with Porsche to become the first to put blockchain technology into a car, has raised funding in cryptocurrency from IOTA co-founder Dominik Schiener. Schiener’s contribution is one of the first major crypto investments of its kind and adds to the trend of venture capital funding through cryptocurrency. The capital will be used to propel XAIN’s privacy-oriented Federated Machine Learning (FedML).

XAIN, short for the eXpandable AI Network, was launched as an Oxford University spin-off by CEO Leif-Nissen Lundbaek and CTO Professor Michael Huth and received seed investment funding of €6 million, led by venture capital fund Earlybird in 2018 to explore technology transfer of privacy-preserving AI, with an emphasis on Federated Machine Learning for industrial usage patterns.

According to Leif-Nissen Lundbaek, CEO and co-founder of XAIN, the startup’s distributed approach to machine learning offers greater privacy, security, and efficiency in the way data is trained. “ XAIN’s FedML solution will ensure the truly scalable and effective adoption of AI”, he adds.

Dominik Schiener, co-founder of IOTA and an active player in the blockchain ecosystem since 2012 shares the excitement and explains how XIAN fits into his vision at IOTA:

“With this investment I see a great opportunity to help push IOTA further towards product-readiness and bring greater privacy, security, and efficiency to both the DLT and AI sectors. The AI ecosystem is rapidly growing, and I see XAIN combined with IOTA uniquely positioned to create an open and permissionless ecosystem which leverages the strength of both platforms.”