INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Pro-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo, which offers an alternative to surveillance engines like Google, has quietly picked up $10M in fresh
funding from Canadian pension fund Omers& VC arm
TheGlobe and Mailreported the news earlier this month.
It only the second funding round for the ten year old company — which last picked
up $3M in VC all the way back in 2011, according to Crunchbase.
In a blog postannouncing the investment, Omers Ventures argues that privacy
and security concerns have &risen to the forefront of public consciousness& over the past five years — noting how governments are
responding to public demand and data breaches and &starting to take real action&, citingthe European Union updated privacy framework, GDPR,
as one example.
With that conviction in mind, the fund actively pursued an investment in DDG, which has been profitable (via non-tracking
advertising) since 2014 so was not in need of a cash injection
And, indeed, initially refused one
But Omers persisted and was able to persuade founder Gabriel Weinberg to take the money tohelp support growth objectives for DDG,
&particularly internationally&, and including in Canada (where the fund is based).
Expanding its privacy and security offerings is another
rational for DDG taking the funding.
At the start of this year the company branched out from its core product of private (non-tracking)
search — adding a tracker blocker and other privacy and security tools to create a functional bundle to help web users keep their browsing
private too.
In an interview with Bloomberg,Weinberg said the focus with Omers is &to figure out how to take that globally as they&re a
global pension fund&.
Asked for more detail about the plans,he told TechCrunch: &While we are already global (and have been since launch in
2008), we are now trying to focus more on specific markets: In hiring, better tuning our search engine results for local markets, and
expanding the channels we use to market DuckDuckGo to have more of a global focus.&
Hiring international staff will therefore be a big part
of DDG growth push.
&We are focused on staffing up to continue to deliver the best all-in-one privacy solution (the one we launched at the
beginning of the year) and marketing, with a more particular focus on outside of the US,& he also told us.
&Our top markets (in terms of
search traffic) outside the US are: DE [Germany], UK, FR [France], CA [Canada], though we have significant growth and presence in most
countries in terms of relative search market share.&
Weinberg added that Omers has &a deep personal interest and investment thesis in
privacy, and do believe there is an inflection point now&.
