Mozilla Ventures Unveiled (UPDATED)
-
The Mozilla Blog: Mozilla Launches First-of-its-Kind Venture Fund to Fuel Responsible Tech Companies, Products [Ed: Mozilla could instead pay salaries to much-needed Firefox developers]
Today, amid a sea of internet companies and products that routinely put profits ahead of people, Mozilla is unveiling an ambitious new venture capital fund to transform technology investment — and the internet more broadly.
-
The Mozilla Blog: Mozilla Ventures: Investing in Responsible Tech [Ed: Mozilla laid off many engineers to instead waste money on optics]
My response: we won’t know unless we try, together.
Personally, I think it is possible to build successful companies — and great internet products — that put people before profits. Mozilla proves this. But so do ProtonMail, Hugging Face, Kickstarter and a good number of others. All are creating products and technology that respect users — and that are making the internet a healthier place.
UPDATE
-
Mozilla Foundation launches ethical venture capital fund [Ed: Mozilla's money comes from Google, i.e. mostly from militarism and mass surveillance (or espionage). Nothing ethical about it, this is just a whitewashing incubator thinly presented as "ethics"
Mozilla has announced the successor to the Mozilla Builders incubator: Mozilla Ventures.
Mozilla defined the project in a post as an investment fund for early-stage internet startups that Mozilla feels align with the Mozilla Manifesto. The fund will officially open next year, but has already made some preliminary investments.
The news came from Mozilla executive director Mark Surman, and the new fund will be run by Mohamed Nanabhay, previously senior advisor at the Media Development Investment Fund. The new fund succeeds 2020's Mozilla Builders program, which apparently "invested in 80+ people, projects, and technologies reshaping the internet."
The initial pot of $35 million will go towards "seed to series A startups… whose products or technologies advance… values… like privacy, inclusion, transparency, and human dignity."
Some backing has already been given to three new companies: Block Party, heylogin, and Secure AI Labs.
Now Mark Surman hopes you forget who funds Mozilla:
-
Mozilla Ventures: Investing in Responsible Tech - Mark Surman
Many people complain about today’s tech industry. Some say the internet has lost its soul. And some even say it’s impossible to make it better.
My response: we won’t know unless we try, together.
Personally, I think it is possible to build successful companies — and great internet products — that put people before profits. Mozilla proves this. But so do WordPress, Hugging Face, ProtonMail, Kickstarter, and a good number of others. All are creating products and technology that respect users — and that are making the internet a healthier place.