- Impervious Technologies has concluded a seed funding round with investors including institutional Bitcoin services provider NYDIG.
- The funding will be used to secure mobile and Bitcoin talent for the development of a mobile internet browser built on top of Impervious and the design of future peer-to-peer (P2P) applications.
- Impervious is an internet browser that leverages Bitcoin’s Lightning Network for direct P2P connections, removing intermediaries like Google and Facebook which often collect lots of consumer data.
Impervious Technologies Inc., the firm behind the Lightning-based internet Impervious Browser, has recently closed its first seed financing round, according to a press release. The team said it plans to employ the undisclosed sum raised towards expansion of the rapidly growing company through incentives it hopes will attract Bitcoin and mobile developers.
Impervious hopes to capture market share currently constrained to Big Tech companies whose business models ultimately commoditize customer data – effectively turning the customers into the product. To achieve this goal, Impervious is looking to develop user-friendly products, including a mobile browser built on top of the Impervious Browser and a suite of new applications that seek to remove corporate intermediaries from the services consumers want.
“The Impervious Browser represents a new approach to the internet,” said Meltem Demirors, chief strategy officer of CoinShares, a leading investor of the seed round. “One that defaults to the P2P internet standard and provides consumers with a much needed choice concerning where and how their data is stored and transferred.”
The Impervious Browser is set for release in Q2 2022.
In addition to CoinShares and NYDIG, notable investors for this funding round also include Trammell Venture Partners, Fundamental Labs, Strategic Cyber Ventures, TEN-31, and others who seek to implement a truly P2P internet standard.
“The Impervious Browser enables Zoom without Zoom, messaging without WhatsApp, publishing without Facebook and identity without the state,” explained Chase Perkins, founder & CEO of Impervious Technologies, per the press release.
Big Tech has floundered on its promises of security and privacy for the sake of speed and accessibility. One needs not to look too far into the past to find a data leak that casts doubt on society’s current privacy practices. Separating from the centralized internet of the past requires the money protecting these institutions to flow elsewhere, however consumers still need to know they are protected.
“Consumer protection and cyber security-related infrastructure initiatives are largely unachievable until we introduce mechanisms that bolster data privacy,” said Perkins. “The Impervious Browser provides individuals with greater day-to-day discretion and control over their data, payments and communications.”
By connecting users directly in a P2P fashion with the help of the Lightning Network, Impervious will allow consumers to cryptographically secure their data in a variety of ways that, as of today, either require intermediaries or are extremely cumbersome.