Porsche Names Winner of Blockchain Startup Contest

German automaker Porsche has revealed the winner of a blockchain startup competition first announced in April.

As CoinDesk reported at the time, Porsche solicited entries from startups as part of a broader bid to explore how it might apply blockchain to its own business. The carmaker said today that more than 100 applicants entered the contest.

The winner is a startup called Xain AG, founded in February of this year and based in Germany. The startup is looking to apply blockchain to the industrial production process, leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning in tandem.

Xain AG will receive a cash prize worth €25,000, as well as a spot in the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management's Accelerator Program.

Perhaps more notably, the startup and the automaker will work together on blockchain research starting in August. The collaboration will kick off with a three-month prototype development phase at SpinLab, a Leipzig-based accelerator backed by Porsche.

In statements, Porsche reiterated past statements that it wants to leverage the expertise of startups as it explores potential uses of the tech.

"We aim to gain new perspectives on the disruptive potential of the transaction system blockchain from the startup scene," Martin Roth, Porsche's manager for strategy, finances and risk management, said.

Porsche is not the only automaker that is trialling blockchain tech.

In May, Toyota unveiled a new internal research effort. And earlier this year, Daimler AG announced that it was joining the Hyperledger project, a blockchain development effort backed by the Linux Foundation.

Xain AG image courtesy of Porsche