US-based internet and cybersecurity technology provider Cloudflare announced a $100m corporate venturing fund yesterday that will invest in startups developing apps on its newly launched Cloudflare Apps Platform.
The $100m supplied for Cloudflare Developer Fund comes from its parent company and venture capital firms New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Venrock and Pelion Venture Partners. All four will also provide marketing support and technical advice to portfolio companies.
Cloudflare launched the fund in tandem with the Cloudflare Apps Platform, a free platform on which developers can create apps using the company’s infrastructure that can be distributed to the 6 million members of its network.
Matthew Prince, co-founder and chief executive of Cloudflare, said: “When you build a startup you need three things: a way to efficiently reach customers, a way to get paid, and capital to finance your development.
“Together the Cloudflare Apps Platform and Developer Fund solve these three challenges. I am looking forward to seeing the new applications that will be created now that we have unlocked for developers access to Cloudflare’s global infrastructure, and world-class investors who understand the opportunity of leveraging Cloudflare’s scale.”
In addition to supporting the fund, NEA, Venrock and Pelion are all shareholders of the privately-held Cloudflare, having invested at series B stage or earlier. The company’s other backers include corporates Baidu, Alphaet, Qualcomm and Microsoft.
The launch of Cloudflare Developer Fund came a day after another cybersecurity technology producer, Trend Micro, announced its own $100m fund.