Fantix, a no-code federated learning infrastructure that enables businesses to collaborate in training and building common robust AI models without pooling user-level data, has closed its first investment round of $1.6 million, which it will use to advance development.
Fantix uses a collaborative learning technique based on data abstraction that makes it possible to build federated knowledge through the sharing of models and insights without sharing data – only anonymous aggregated abstractions of data - protecting consumer privacy and business confidentiality. Fantix launched earlier this year, with Epsilon as a charter partner.
Participants in the investment round include:
● Gaingels, one of the largest and most active private investors dedicated to supporting diversity and inclusion within the venture capital ecosystem;
● Notion Capital, Europe’s leading early-stage venture investor in business software and fintech;
● Founders Factory, the global venture studio and early-stage investor that backs visionary founders;
● Fastweb, one of Italy’s leading telecommunications companies;
● Connect Ventures, a leading early-stage VC fund focused on product-driven founders
● IAG: the leading Italian syndicate fund supporting startups in early-stage;
● B Heroes, a leading early-stage European fund managed by former successful tech entrepreneurs.
Fantix is a federated data infrastructure layer that can be applied on any tech stack or cloud to enable organizations to federate their data in a peer-to-peer comparison, creating a decentralized network for generating insights and training AI models.
“With the degradation of cookies, first party data is becoming more and more critical. But at the same time, many organizations do not have first-party data and see few datapoints for users,” says Antonio Tomarchio, CEO and cofounder of Fantix. “With this first round of funding from organizations that bring considerable experience in building innovative technology companies, we can advance our mission of helping businesses to connect to train predictive models and enable federated learning for greater insights into consumers in a completely privacy preserving manner.”
“Democratized access to AI modeling capabilities for organizations of all sizes is critical to ensure ethical AI development and to avoid the risk of bias in models that could have significant impact on vulnerable minorities and citizens,” says Lorenzo Thione, Managing Director, Gaingels. “The federated data infrastructure that Fantix is developing will be a powerful tool to this end and we are delighted to support the Fantix team in this exciting mission".
"As data privacy becomes increasingly critical, Fantix democratizes access to the insights needed for AI implementation across the tech ecosystem. We're very excited to be backing Antonio and the Fantix team in their mission to build the go-to infrastructure for federated data”, says Arya Tandon, who led the investment of Notion Capital in this round.
Andrea Di Natale, IAG Champion noted: “The combination of the end of cookies and the development of AI technologies is creating huge competitive disadvantages for companies that are unable to access this type of data. Fantix enables companies to exchange first-party data in a ‘privacy-safe’ manner and overcome the limitations of GDPR. This is possible thanks to the outstanding team led by Antonio Tomarchio, a serial entrepreneur with a super track record in the market. We are therefore pleased to support them in their project.”
Sal Matteis, Director of Founders Factory Italy, added: "Artificial intelligence and automation are reshaping our world's future, necessitating vast consumer data. In the rapidly-evolving AI landscape, Fantix stands out as a premier privacy-centric predictive analytics platform, committed to democratizing AI through its federated-platform without compromising personal data privacy. We're thrilled to support their innovative approach and to have the pleasure to work with such a visionary team."
For more information on Fantix, please visit www.fantix.ai.