It seems like every Internet company and their dog has at least one venture capital (VC) arm under its wing, like GV (formerly Google Ventures), M12 (formerly Microsoft Ventures), Salesforce Ventures, Twilio Ventures, and Zoom Ventures all seem to exist. Serving their corporate names as potential cash cows with hundreds of equity investments.
Today, it’s Mozilla’s turn to bolster its investment efforts with a $35 million VC fund aimed at early-stage startups. Mozilla Ventures, announced today at a web conference in Portugal, builds on other investments the company has made as part of the Mozilla Builders Startup Incubator program, though Mozilla has actually invested in about 20 companies over the past decade.
Recently, Mozilla joined password management startup Hylogic in a $900,000 pre-seed funding round. While Heylogin confirmed Mozilla as an investor back in September, we now know that this represents one of Mozilla’s first three investments from its new fund. The other two are Block Party, which raised $4.8 million in seed funding in September to fight online harassment, and Safe AI Labs, which is reportedly in the process of raising $9 million for a product that promotes collaboration in the medical industry. Data.
While it doesn’t reveal exactly how much is being plowed into these companies, the investment pitch gives some idea of what Mozilla Ventures is looking for with the new fund. He’s focused on seeding Series A-level startups, but specifically what he calls “responsible” tech companies that are “pushing the Internet and the tech industry in a better direction.”
But first, let’s take a quick step back and see how we got from a brand still known as a web browser to “Mozilla the VC.”
The story so far
The Mozilla “community” emerged from Netscape in 1998, and today is a non-profit organization called the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation.
Mozilla’s open-source Firefox emerged as a major player in the web browsing space, overtaking the mighty Internet Explorer and hitting a 30% market share around 2010. 4% market share, although this still puts it in the top three browsers behind Chrome and Safari.
Today, Mozilla is a proponent of privacy and positions itself as the opposite of Big Tech behemoths like Google, even though it relies on the Internet giant for revenue. In recent years, it has introduced several new privacy products, including virtual private networks (VPNs) and email masking services. He also worked on other projects such as the now defunct operating system Firefox OS. But with the Firefox web browser recently hitting version 100, it’s clear that Mozilla still relies heavily on its flagship browser. The company makes $500 million a year, the lion’s share of which comes from its search engine partnership with Google. Other sources of funding include subscriptions (VPN and email-mask), advertising and donations from the public.
All of which brings us to today, where Mozilla is now looking to extend its reach into the world of venture capital. The new fund is led by managing partner Mohamed Nanabhai, a South African technology and media executive and investor who served on Mozilla’s board until August this year.
“People before interests.”
Mozilla Ventures seeks to set itself apart from the pack by focusing on “putting people before profits.” In fact, there are many VC funds that could easily apply for a similar mission, investing only in other companies working in the climate-tech or environmental-social-governance (ESG) realm. But Mozilla is addressing slightly different areas of the technology spectrum, such as privacy. “Trust AI”; And finally, products to help decentralize digital power, which could be code for Web3.
“There are a lot of funds focused on ethical investment in areas like climate and economic justice. We’ve taken a lot of inspiration from those funds. As far as we know, Mozilla Ventures is only focused on responsible Internet startups. And, some While other funds have invested in this area, the startups we’ve met through Mozilla Builders have told us there’s a lot of need here.
Mozilla’s experimental developer incubator program was a short-lived initiative that began and ended in 2020, though Mozilla says it has completed more than 80 small investments.
“The Builders experiment made it clear that there are founders and teams who are hungry to ‘fix the Internet,’ but they need support,” Surman said. “Earlier this year, we decided that Mozilla would have an ongoing commitment to supporting people and projects that we met through developer. Mozilla Ventures is our first step in that direction.”
It’s also worth noting that the initial $35 million in funding is being provided entirely by the Mozilla Foundation, whose money will also come from sources that include donations from the public – many of which can be donated just to support their favorite web browser. But Firefox is technically maintained by Mozilla Corporation, Surman said. all of them The money the Mozilla Foundation receives from donations is used entirely to fund its patronage and philanthropic efforts, which include privacy guidelines and grants to professors who teach responsible technology programs.
“Mozilla Ventures is funded by long-term savings from Mozilla,” Surman said. “Simply put, we’re moving funds from our existing investment accounts into investment vehicles for companies that fulfill their mission in a way that aligns with Mozilla.”
Nanabhai will initially be the only full-time member working at Mozilla Ventures, supported by a team of advisors in London, Boston and San Francisco, but the process is underway to recruit additional executives in the US and Europe to strengthen the fund’s investments. Desires.
“We want to support founders working on the many challenges we face online – from misinformation to censorship, from security to privacy and can be affected at a moment and scale,” Nanabhai said in a press release ahead of today’s announcement. . “These issues are too important to be left to any institution to resolve.”
Surman added that Mozilla Ventures is in talks with co-investors, which will allow the fund to grow in terms of dollars and industry expertise.
“In early 2023, we will announce further updates and progress on the fund, including additional investments and potential partners,” Surman said.
