Brussels / Odense — XiniX AI today announces the closing of its pre-seed funding round, led exclusively by Actia Capital Partners, a specialist investment firm for early-stage InfraTech. Actia has additionally committed to XiniX AI's next funding round. The investment will be used to expand the technical team, accelerate research and development, and deploy more Sprout robots into industrial environments. XiniX AI is already generating early revenue through industrial pilots.

Confined spaces — distillation towers, pressure vessels, underground pipelines, silos — represent one of industry's most persistent and deadly challenges. Confined space incidents claim hundreds of lives each year across Europe and North America, with the majority of fatalities involving rescuers rather than original workers. Yet routine inspection of these assets still depends on human entry. The result: unnecessary risk, costly downtime, and inspection data that is often incomplete or inconsistent.

XiniX AI was founded to eliminate that risk entirely. Sprout is a soft pneumatic vine robot that grows through narrow and complex structures, reaching areas inaccessible to both humans and conventional rigid robots. Beyond eliminating human exposure, Sprout delivers something conventional inspection cannot — structured, high-quality data on asset condition that feeds directly into XiniX Forge, an AI platform for automated defect detection and maintenance insights. The combined system is delivered as a Robot-as-a-Service offering, enabling operators to access continuous inspection data and analysis without capital expenditure on equipment.

“When industrial operators see Sprout in action, the value proposition becomes immediately clear. It solves a problem that no existing solution addresses — and it does so in a way that is safe, scalable, and data-driven. Actia stood out as a partner who truly understands the scale of the infrastructure challenges we want to address. Beyond capital, they bring the strategic insight and network that will help us scale across critical infrastructure sectors.”

— Jaskaran Sandhu, CEO & Co-Founder, XiniX AI

XiniX AI was spun out of TMC Belgium, part of TMC — an international technology consultancy with nearly 3,500 engineers across 18 countries, known for its unique “employeneurship” model that actively encourages engineers to build ventures from within. The company traces its origins to the XPRIZE Rainforest competition, a global incentive challenge to accelerate technologies protecting tropical rainforests, where XiniX reached the 2023 Semi-Finals — with the navigation and sensing work developed there becoming the technical foundation for Sprout.

“We built the core of this technology to navigate the most complex environments on earth — tropical rainforests. When we looked at what industry needed, confined spaces presented the same fundamental challenge: reach the unreachable, gather data no one else can gather. Sprout was the natural answer.”

— Eric Herrero, CTO & Co-Founder, XiniX AI

Over the past year, XiniX AI has run pilots with international industrial partners including Repsol, the global multi-energy company, and Vinçotte, a leading inspection and certification body. Projects to date span oil & gas, chemicals, maritime, and construction. While the company's initial focus has been in oil & gas, Sprout is designed for broader infrastructure applications across water, agri-food, and nuclear sectors.

“The robot gets you in. XiniX Forge is what makes the data actionable. We built it to automatically identify defects, assess asset condition, and surface maintenance insights — turning raw inspection data into decisions. That combination is what makes our system genuinely transformative for industrial operators.”

— Dorin Cerbu, Chief AI Officer & Co-Founder, XiniX AI

Originally founded in Belgium, XiniX AI joined the Odense Robotics StartUp Fund incubator at the Danish Technological Institute in 2025. The Odense Robotics environment gave the company infrastructure it could not have built alone, and a network that has opened doors to the right industrial partners at the right time.

The company's approach has drawn recognition across the deep tech and robotics landscape — as a Hello Tomorrow Deep Tech Pioneer 2026, EU Robotics Renaud Champion, Technomania IDA Denmark 2025 Champion, and XPRIZE Rainforest Semi-Finalist — and has been backed by the Danish InnoFounder grant.

About XiniX AI

  • Belgian-Danish deep-tech startup developing soft robotics and AI for inspection of industrial confined and hazardous spaces.
  • Products include Sprout, a vine-inspired soft inspection robot, and XiniX Forge, an AI platform for automated defect detection and maintenance insights.
  • Serves oil & gas, nuclear, refinery, chemical, and underground infrastructure sectors via a Robot-as-a-Service model.
  • Spun out of TMC Belgium and originated from the XPRIZE Rainforest competition (2023 Semi-Finalist).
  • Supported by Actia Capital Partners and Odense Robotics StartUp Fund.
  • Recognised as Hello Tomorrow Deep Tech Pioneer 2026, EU Robotics Renaud Champion, Technomania IDA Denmark 2025 Champion, and XPRIZE Rainforest Semi-Finalist. Recipient of the Danish InnoFounder grant.

Website: www.xinix.ai — Contact: contact@xinix.ai

About Actia Capital Partners

Actia is a specialist investment firm for early-stage InfraTech. With its long-term partnership approach, Actia backs exceptional entrepreneurs building innovative infrastructure solutions at commercialisation stage.

About Odense Robotics StartUp Fund

Odense Robotics StartUp Fund is a commercial foundation that, in collaboration with Odense Robotics and the Danish Technological Institute, provides robotics startups with access to capital, business development support, and world-class incubation facilities.