The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2016
Brendan Eich's Brave browser raises $4.5M seed for its Bitcoin micropayment bet
Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich's Brave browser raised a $4.5M seed round to back its bet that blocking ads and paying publishers via Bitcoin can fix the web.
Brave Software
What the business is
Brave builds an open-source browser for desktop and mobile that blocks invasive ads and trackers by default, loads pages faster, and routes payments to publishers through Brave Ledger, a Bitcoin-based micropayments system.
Starting capital：$4.5M seed from FF Angel (Founders Fund), Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital and Digital Currency Group, on top of earlier angel funding that brought total funding to $7M.
How it started
Brave Software was led by Brendan Eich, co-founder of Mozilla, who argued that online advertisers had exploited user data for years without consent and that viewing content should not come at the expense of safety. His answer was to reinvent the browser as a user platform for speed, privacy and micropayments, with ad-blocking and tracker protection built in rather than bolted on as an extension.
What happened
By August 2016 the dev build ran on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux, with claims of 40-60% faster page loading on desktop and 2-4x on mobile plus battery and data savings. Brave was partnering with BitGo and Coinbase for wallets and purchasing tools behind the Brave Ledger, a Bitcoin micropayments system that would automatically and anonymously pay users' favorite websites, and it planned an opt-in, privacy-preserving ad model that shares revenue with users and publishers. On 2016-08-01 the company announced a $4.5M seed round from FF Angel, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital and Digital Currency Group, bringing total funding to $7M and setting up a 1.0 launch planned for September 2016.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Brave Software, led by Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich, built an open-source browser for desktop and mobile that blocks invasive ads and online trackers by default, without extensions, claiming 40-60% faster desktop page loads, 2-4x speedups on mobile, and protection from malware-laced ads. Eich's argument was that advertisers had exploited user data for years without consent, and that 200 million users worldwide adopting ad-blockers showed the market wanted a browser that sided with them.
Brave's twist was to keep publishers paid: through Brave Ledger, a Bitcoin-based micropayments system built with BitGo and Coinbase wallets, users could automatically and anonymously pay the websites they visited, and both users and publishers could opt into a privacy-preserving ad model that shares revenue. The company described itself as reinventing the browser as a user platform for speed, privacy and micropayments, pairing security features like HTTPS Everywhere and fingerprinting shields with a payments layer.
On 2016-08-01 Brave announced a $4.5M seed round from FF Angel (Founders Fund), Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital and Digital Currency Group, on top of earlier angel funding for $7M total, earmarked for platform development and growth. The developer version was already available for download on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux, with a 1.0 launch planned for September 2016.
What has to be true
- Ad-blocking had already won the argument: 200 million users were defending themselves, so Eich built a browser where blocking is the default rather than an add-on.
- Brave made publishers part of the deal through Brave Ledger, routing Bitcoin micropayments to users' favorite websites instead of simply destroying ad revenue.
- Crypto-native investors funded the thesis: Digital Currency Group, Pantera and others backed the idea that blockchain micropayments could replace the surveillance-ad middlemen.
- The distribution play was the wedge: a browser controls the page load, so it could deliver speed, privacy and payments without asking users to change habits.
What can be applied
Fix the web's ad economics at the distribution layer: a browser that blocks surveillance ads by default can still pay publishers through opt-in ads and micropayments, making privacy the product.
Aftermath
As of 2016-08-01 Brave was in developer release across iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and Linux, claiming 40-60% faster desktop loading and 2-4x on mobile from built-in ad and tracker blocking. It had raised $7M in total, named BitGo and Coinbase as partners for Brave Ledger wallet and purchasing tools, and planned its 1.0 launch for September 2016, with the seed round allocated to platform development and growth.
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