Sequoia Capital plans to fund up to three open source software developers per year as a continuation of a program it launched last year.
The Silicon Valley venture capital firm announced the Sequoia Open Source Fellowship last May, initially by invitation only, with only one candidate eligible so far. Going forward, Sequoia is inviting developers to apply for scholarships that cover up to one year of costs so they can work on the project full-time without giving up capital or ownership.
lack of funds
It's no secret that open source software suffers from chronic underfunding issues, and this fact only becomes mainstream every time a major security flaw like Log4Shell wreaks havoc on the software supply chain. seems to permeate the consciousness of
Volunteer contributors are often the central driving force behind the building blocks of some of the world's most widely used applications, and they typically contribute to open source projects in between jobs that actually pay the bills. You need to work on a passion project. This arrangement is generally fine until something goes wrong, at which point the government belatedly pushes the industry to make the software supply chain a little more robust. They issue orders and regulations and start taking action in a hurry.
Such regulations are forcing Big Tech companies to collaborate on new funding schemes to support developers of the most important open source software components, while also providing support for companies like Spotify, Salesforce, and even Companies like Bloomberg are also launching their own grant programs.
But these various funding efforts have little to do with pure altruism. Companies that spend money typically identify which open source software they rely on the most and allocate funds accordingly. It's ultimately about protecting your business while also attracting goodwill from the community you want or need. I'm even thinking of hiring them in the future.
slight return
So how does this translate into the realm of venture capital? Why would Sequoia want to fund software developers who don't see any financial return on their investments? Well, like other similar funds, Sequoia may not be able to collect the cash directly. , but stands to benefit in other ways. It's not a charitable donation, it's an investment in the “big picture.”
To understand where Sequoia is going with this effort, you only need to look at some of the businesses Sequoia has invested in over the years. The company previously backed companies such as MongoDB, a $34 billion database giant that has since abandoned that service. Open Source Roots) and Confluent, the company behind the open source stream processing platform Apache Kafka.
“Open source has really become the lifeblood of software these days. If you look under the hood of even today's proprietary software, you'll find that it relies heavily on open source libraries and packages. ,” Sequoia partner Bogomil Balkansky told TechCrunch via email. “Open source is what the world works on, and it's what computer systems work on today.”
Most recently, Sequoia backed PartyKit, an open source startup building real-time multiplayer infrastructure for any app, and Temporal, an open source microservices orchestration platform. Sequoia also has an investment in Coana. Although Coana is not open source per se, it helps enterprises prioritize vulnerabilities within their open source software stacks.
But one investment in particular shines a real light on the purpose of Sequoia's new fellowship. Last year, Sequoia acquired Pydantic, a startup aiming to commercialize its popular Python library and open source data validation framework of the same name, used by prominent companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. I supported it.
What's interesting here is that Pydantic relies heavily on FastAPI, an open source web framework for building APIs. FastAPI was created by Sebastián Ramírez Montaño, a Colombian software developer based in Berlin. He became Sequoia's first (and to date only) recipient of the fellowship last year.
FastAPI's Sebastian Ramirez, flanked by Sequoia's Lauren Rieder and Bogomir Balkansky image credits: Sequoia Capital
What this highlights is that some open source projects naturally become fully commercialized entities, while others are similar to Lego blocks and are just as important, but directly monetized. That means it's difficult to do.
“The open source world is somewhat divided between projects that can be commercialized and projects that are very important and impactful but can't be commercialized,” Balkansky said. “At Sequoia, we have a long history of partnering with potential great companies and will continue to partner with these founders and creators.”
And this is why Sequoia has two different financial commitments to two different types of open source entities, a foundational project that could help one of the companies in which it has a direct stake. We use grants to support.
“For Sequoia to be successful, and for the portfolio of companies we work with to be successful, there is a critical category of open source developer work that must be supported for the entire ecosystem to function well. ” Balkansky added.
Sequoia announced today that it will begin accepting applications from “any developer” working on open source projects, and will consider them “in stages.” The funding includes living expenses paid in monthly installments for up to a year, allowing developers to focus fully on their projects without worrying about how to put food on the table.
“We want to support open source creators and projects that are being adopted in the real world,” Sequoia partner Lauren Reeder told TechCrunch. “Many of these developers are trying to balance OSS. [open source software] Not just projects, but sometimes full-time or even multiple part-time jobs. We want to fund the things that have the biggest impact. ”