The Browser Company, which makes the Arc browser, has raised $50 million in a round led by Pace Capital at a valuation of $550 million, TechCrunch has learned exclusively.
Nasir Moeen, the company's head of storytelling, confirmed the investment to TechCrunch.
“Now, more than ever, we continue to believe that a successor to the personal computer (PC) is imminent. And it starts in the browser. See you there,” Muen said in a statement.
Founded in 2019, the company has raised a total of $1 in multiple rounds with notable investors including LinkedIn's Jeff Weiner, Medium's Ev Williams, Figma's Dylan Field, Notion's Akshay Kothari, and GitHub's Jason Warner. Raised $28 million. Existing investors include Next Play Ventures and Pace Capital.
The Browser Company was founded by Josh Miller, a White House product director during the Barack Obama administration and an investor at Thrive Capital. And Hrush Agrawal co-founded conversation service Branch.com with Miller, a startup acquired by Facebook in 2014.
building arc
The startup's Arc browser has managed to grab people's attention with a feature set that includes command bar navigation, pinned tabs, and different workspaces to separate websites for work and personal use. But for a long time, this browser was available only by invitation on the Mac. Last July, the company made it available for download to all users. In addition, we have begun making the Windows client available through a closed beta program.
Users often complained that the desktop client had a steep learning curve due to the different way browsers handle tabs. Because browsers are similar to applications. The company's first iPhone app was just a companion app for saving tabs that could later be accessed on the desktop client. But the company focused on putting AI-powered search front and center in his January release of the Arc Search app on iOS. The app didn't require users to create an account and allowed them to set it as their default browser, possibly attracting a larger user base.
Bet on AI and criticism surrounding it
In October 2023, Arc introduces the first set of AI features, including a way to rename downloaded files and pinned tabs, easy access to ChatGPT, and a preview summary when you hover over a link. has been released. With the release of Arc Search, the company introduced a “Browse for me” feature. This feature reads his six web pages related to your query and generates a new page with a visual summary.
In February, the startup released more features, including “Instant Links” for accessing results directly instead of on Google pages. For example, if you search for “Barbie trailer” through this feature, your browser will take you directly to the YouTube page. It also works with folders where browsers can create folders with article links, such as searching for “folder for Apple Vision Pro reviews.”
That same month, the company also released a pinch-to-summerize feature for Arc Search. However, in many cases the summaries were not accurate.
Additionally, several journalists criticized the feature, raising concerns about its impact on publishers' web traffic. Platformer Casey Newton spoke about how Arc's approach could negatively impact journalism and the web as a whole. Ryan Broderick, publisher of the Garbage Day newsletter, wrote in a Fast Company column that companies building AI-powered search believe their approach motivates his website and the people who contribute to the web through content. He pointed out that he had not thought about how it would affect the
Here are some of my favorite features we've released so far:
Pinch any website in the Arc Search app — the same way you pinch 🤏 to zoom out — to summarize the page by folding it origami-style.
It feels great and it saves me a lot of time when I'm on the go and getting a link sent to me via text. pic.twitter.com/Ze1O6bHksz
— Josh Miller (@joshm) February 22, 2024
“The best thing about the Internet is that people who are very passionate about something create websites about the things they love. Arc's new features mediate and alleviate that. Glitch CEO Anil Dash told Engadget last month.
The company is working on developing AI agents that browse the web on behalf of users. In a video released in February, Miller criticized Google's model of pushing more ads instead of getting people the results they want. The company hopes to change this with its AI agent approach. But critics like Dash point out that this approach can damage people's relationships with his website and the people who maintain his website.
What’s next for the company?
Despite raising millions of dollars, the company has yet to reveal its plans for monetization. This week, The Browser Company launched his website “We might not make it'' and published a video in which he talks about his plans to generate revenue, competition in the field, criticism of his product approach, and more.
Chris Pike, the lead investor in the company's latest investment round, wrote an essay about how browsers will become operating systems and all software will be accessible through web applications.
“As technology seams open, the frontier widens. When the areas to innovate are increasing, the only thing that matters is the speed of innovation. A certain amount of innovation quickly becomes commoditized. It's in the Company's DNA. They ship weekly and are constantly pushing the boundaries of product innovation,” Pike wrote.
Paul Frazee, who built a decentralized browser called Beaker, said it's hard to scale browser products because people are set in their ways and it's hard to get them to switch. He also pointed out that without search transactions, it will be difficult to monetize.
“The only model that has been successful is to combine a browser with a search product and advertise on search. This is relatively intuitive, since a browser is nothing without a search engine, but if the browser vendor is Google It becomes very difficult to make money without competing with that,” Frazee said.
The Sigma OS browser, backed by LocalGlobe and YC, has experimented with a payment model by creating a product for teams, but it's not a model that has proven successful.
Browser companies have big ambitions to build “Internet computers” for users. At the same time, they are coming up with a monetization strategy that will make the company sustainable in the long term, while also facing obstacles such as providing enough incentive for users to change their default web browser.
The reporter can be reached by email at im@ivanmehta.com or via the link on Signal.