General Electric Invests In Blockchain Cybersecurity Startup

General Electric (GE), a venture capital industrial member is one of the participants in a $12 million Series A fundraising round for Xage, a cybersecurity startup. The company makes use of blockchain technology in securely linking industrial Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Other participants on the fundraising round which is being managed by March Capital Partners include Light Capital and NexStar Partners.

Before the funding round, the valuation of Xage was around $35 million. The fundraising round happens at a time when there is a growing number of cyber-attacks.

In a statement, GE Ventures’ managing director of investing, Abhishek Shukla noted, “For industries to benefit from the IoT revolution, organizations need to fully connect and protect their operations. Xage is enabling the adoption of these cutting-edge technologies across energy, transportation, telecom, and other global industries. We are excited to support Xage’s innovative approach.”

The technology created by Xage produces a distributed network of devices which are capable of validating each machine’s digital fingerprint. This makes it possible for the distributed system to detect irregularities which stops attacks from getting serious through a centralized network.

It is a huge challenge to protect industrial control systems because many of them were manufactured way before the latest security threats started. Moreover, it can be hard to provide optimal cybersecurity as the machines are sourced from various manufacturers.

In addition to investing in Xage, other arms of GE are trying blockchain technology for use in their various industries.

Another arm of General Electric that is hot on the trial is blockchain technology is GE Global Research. The research and development sector if GE is looking at various ways of using blockchain technology to link consumers with producers of renewable electricity, including solar and wind farms, and also allowing consumers to make purchases using cryptocurrencies.

“You could buy kilowatts of energy immediately using a digital currency and a smart contract that make sure that you don’t overwork the battery or consume more power than you need,” GE Global Research scientist, Ben Beckmann noted earlier this year.