German blockchain and AI startup XAIN has secured around €6 million in a seed funding round led by Earlybird.

The latest round also saw participation from international strategic investors, especially from Asia. Following the investment, XAIN has appointed Dr. Christian Nagel, Managing Partner at Earlybird, to its supervisory board.

“With a global presence and a lot of experience with scaling startups successfully, Earlybird is an ideal partner as lead investor next to all the strategic Co-Investors for our current stage at XAIN. We’re excited to take the next steps together,” said Felix Hahmann, COO and Co-Founder of XAIN.

XAIN plans to scale up its activities and hire about 10 additional employees, mostly software engineers, until end of 2018, and fully develop and launch its product.

Founded in 2014 and incorporated in 2017, XAIN develops a cybersecurity protocol which allows machines, devices, and humans to control access to data and resources in the emerging Internet of Things (IoT). It combines blockchain technology, decentralized access control and machine learning to thwart cyber attacks and puts owners of resources into full control of their data and devices.

Last year, the startup won Porsche’s Blockchain Innovation Contest. In collaboration with Porsche, XAIN integrated blockchain technology into a standard vehicle model with the objective of supporting user-centric access control to vehicle data and functions, like third-party car access.

XAIN is one of the founding members of the recently launched “MOBI”, or the Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative.