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Cryptocurrency leader Blockchain.com has acquired Artificial Intelligence Exchange.
AiX, also based in London, has developed an AI chatbot for negotiating over-the-counter trading.
Terms have not been disclosed for the acquisition, which Blockchain.com said would boost its institutional offering.
AiX’s team includes former employees at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
A mammoth £219 million funding round valued Blockchain.com at £3.8 billion in March, while it also raised around £87m from ‘macro investors’ barely a month before that.
The Series C round featured partners of DST Global, Lightspeed Venture Partners and VY Capital, with participation from other existing investors from around the world.
The London firm is billed as the most popular place to securely buy, store, trade and use cryptocurrency.
Led by CEO and co-founder Peter Smith, it says its platform is trusted by 70m wallets, with more than $620bn in transactions having gone through the platform since 2013.
More than 31m verified users in 200+ countries use Blockchain.com’s products and it has seen a three-times increase in active users over the past 12 months alone.
“The AiX team brings deep engineering, trading, and operational expertise from some of the world’s most respected financial institutions, including JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs,” Smith wrote in a blog post.
“AiX CEO Jos Evans spent 15 year trading and broking in derivatives markets. In fact, he previously launched and sold a brokerage, which was a pioneer in creating new commodity derivatives.
“AiX COO, Taylor Cable held a number of roles — including Senior Trader, Project Manager and Portfolio Manager — at Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management for over 15 years.
“When we raised our Series C last month, I shared our vision to aggressively expand our products, grow our customer base, and to pursue M&A opportunities that bring new products and ideas into the company.
“Given that our institutional markets businesses are rapidly growing, it’s fitting that AiX join us to accelerate development of products and solutions for Institutions.”