Ad-blocking software company Brave announced today that it has raised $4.5 million in seed financing, provided by leading venture firms including Founders Fund’s FF Angel, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital and Foundation Capital.
Brave is developing an open source browser that provides an ad-free web surfing experience for desktop and mobile users. Co-founded in 2015 by Brendan Eich, former CEO of Mozilla, and Brian Bondy, previously at Khan Academy and Mozilla, Brave aims to eliminate advertising to improve the speed and quality of the web experience. According to the company, Brave’s ability to filter out invasive ads increases desktop website loading time by 40 to 60 percent and makes the mobile experience two to four times faster.
Although Brave’s primary aim is to block advertising, the company also claims to offer an alternative advertising option for publishers that allows them to earn revenue without being intrusive or inhibiting browsing speed. The company is also working on Brave Ledger, a Bitcoin-based micropayments tool that automatically and anonymously pays users’ favorite websites.
“Online advertisers have been exploiting user data for years without consent, sometimes even infecting devices with malware. It’s no wonder that 200 million users worldwide have adopted ad-blocking to defend themselves. Viewing content on the Internet should not come at the expense of one’s safety,” said Brendan Eich, President and CEO of Brave Software. “The Brave solution fends off intrusive ads and stops the collection of personal details by third parties, enhancing not just browsing speed, but security and privacy. With Brave, users can now fight back and keep their data private and defensible on their devices, while still supporting the content they wish to view via micropayments.”
Currently available only in a developer version, Brave will launch its 1.0 release in September, 2016.