'Bitcoin Browser' Brave Raises $4.5M, Readies for 1.0 Launch

Brave, a new Bitcoin-based browser that’s looking to change the game with micropayments, revenue-sharing and better security, has announced raising $4.5 million USD in a seed round investment from leading VC firms including Digital Currency Group.

Also read: US Slowly Going Cash-Free, But Where’s the Bitcoin?

$7M to Build a Better Browser

Brave Software, a start-up reinventing the browser as a user platform for speed, privacy, and micropayments, announced today that it has raised a $4.5 million seed round investment from leading venture capital firms and angel investors. Participating in the round are Founders Fund’s FF Angel, Propel Venture Partners, Pantera Capital, Foundation Capital, and Digital Currency Group.

“We are proud to partner with Brave,” Jay Reinemann, Partner at Propel Venture Partners, said. “We believe in their mission to fix the browsing experience and are excited Brave is using the blockchain to better support publishers and pay users.”

This round of funding will be allocated towards platform development and growth. This brings the total amount of funding to date to $7 million USD with previous angel funding from private investors.

Dan Morehead, CEO of Pantera Capital, added:

Pantera is thrilled to be partnering with Brave to bring an enhanced user experience, privacy, and security to the browser. Brave is bringing an innovative model where users and publishers can get paid in real-time micropayments using the blockchain. We believe that Brendan and his team are best suited to execute on this vision.

Brave New Vision

Brave is a new open source browser for desktop and mobile that blocks invasive ads and online trackers to provide a faster and safer web experience. Unlike traditional browsers, Brave has a built-in ad-blocker (no extensions needed), which means faster page loading time and performance as well as protection against ads infected with malware.

“The amount of information that online advertisers are able to gather without consent is staggering,” explains Cyan Banister, Partner at Founders Fund. “As more people become aware of these threats to their privacy, there will be huge demand for Brave’s technology.”

On the desktop, Brave provides a 40% to 60% speed increase, and a 2x to 4x speed increase on mobile devices. Mobile users see a direct reduction in both battery and data plan consumption. Brave also protects users with privacy and security features such as HTTPS Everywhere to encrypt data traffic, fingerprinting shields, phishing protection, malware filtering, and script blocking.

Brave is partnering with BitGo and Coinbase to provide wallets and purchasing tools for the Brave Ledger, a new Bitcoin-based micropayments system that automatically and anonymously pays users’ favorite websites. Brave also will allow users and publishers to opt into a better, privacy-preserving ad model that shares revenue with users as well as publishers.

“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.”

Brave is currently available in developer version, and will launch its 1.0 release in September 2016. Brave is available for download for mobile devices (iOS and Android), as well as the following desktop platforms: MacOS, Windows (32 bit and 64 bit), and Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE).

Have you tried the Brave browser already? Let us know how you like it in the comments below!

Images courtesy of panteracapital.com, brave, helenabitcoinmining.com, thecountrycaller.com