Xayn, a private search and discovery browser for the internet, has raised almost €10.1 million in Series A funding led by Japanese investors Global Brain and KDDI, with participation from the previous backers, including Earlybird VC. This brings Xayn’s total financing to more than €19.3 million to date.
Xayn will use the Series A funding for product development and for expanding the capabilities of its app which is a fusion of a search engine, a discovery feed and a mobile browser. The Berlin-based company will also extend its geographical reach and focus on the expansion in the Asian market, starting with Japan.
“Finding information on the Internet is one of the most important things we do online. And we proved with Xayn that you can have it all: great results through personalization, privacy by design through advanced technology, and a convenient user experience through clean design,” said Leif-Nissen Lundbæk, Co-Founder and CEO of Xayn. “In an industry in which selling data and delivering ads en masse are the norm, we choose to lead with privacy instead and put user satisfaction front and center. Xayn is the search and discovery engine that does not force users to make any compromises – not with the quality of their online experience and search results and certainly not with the privacy of their personal data. Xayn helps you discover your favourite part of the internet.”
The Berlin-based company has nabbed a Series A funding at a moment when privacy-protecting technology is attracting increasing attention from users, companies, and policymakers alike. Even ‘Big Tech’ has begun to introduce greater privacy and data protection measures, but the demand for alternatives keeps growing. In the past few years, numerous privacy breaches, ever more aggressive targeted ads, and legislation such as the EU’s GDPR or California’s CCPA have raised public awareness about the importance of protecting personal data online.
“The market for private online search is growing, but Xayn is head and shoulders above everyone else because of the way they’re re-thinking how finding information online should be. They offer users not only a mere search engine but rather an entire discovery engine with their feed of personalized content suggestions taken from the entire Internet,” explained Naoki Kamimeada, Partner at Global Brain Corporation. “The Xayn team’s scientific and technological expertise, along with their unyielding commitment to data privacy and great user experience, help people dive deeper into the Internet in a new way and according to their individual needs. We are very excited to back the company on its path to re-defining how people search and browse the Internet.”
Xayn’s algorithms do not rely on centralized data collection. Instead, the AI trains directly on users’ devices, does not transmit private information and provides users with an individually tailored web experience. Since its launch, the app has already been downloaded around 215,000 times worldwide. Meanwhile, the company is already working on a web version of its app which will be released soon.
