According to people familiar with the matter, Inrupt, the startup founded by Tim Berners-Lee, raised about $30 million in a recent Series A funding round. The financing was led by Forte Ventures, but both parties declined to disclose the size of the deal.
The round was funded by "all existing investors," including Akamai Technologies and Glasswing Ventures, as well as new investors Allstate and the Frontier Technology Initiative of the Minderoo Foundation.
Inrupt was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web standards, and john Bruce, a technologist— who is trying to "reinvent the internet" by building a platform that lets users control their data. The Inrupt team includes cryptography expert Bruce Schneier.
Berners-Lee said in a statement: "Different parts of a person's life are managed by different silos, each of which takes care of a vertical slice of life, which hinders the transformation of business. "At the same time, this data is being exploited by the associated silos, leading to growing public suspicions about how personal data is misused, which is very reasonable."