Cloudflare launches $1.25 billion funding program for developers on its platform

Cloudflare Inc. is launching a $1.25 billion funding program to support startups and developers building application on its Cloudflare Workers platform. 

The San Francisco company (NYSE: NET) is not funding startups directly, but instead is working with 26 venture capital partners to allocate the funds. The partners include heavy hitters like Altimeter Capital, Bain Capital Ventures and Greylock Partners. 

“If there’s one thing venture capitalists look for in the companies they fund, it’s the potential to achieve significant scale. Startups that build on Cloudflare Workers are building on a platform made to automatically support serious scale,” said Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince in a press release. “While we can provide the technology, we’re thrilled to partner with some of the leading venture capital firms on the Workers Launchpad Funding Program, who will potentially invest more than a billion dollars in funding towards great startups built on Cloudflare Workers as they scale.”

Cloudflare says 500,000 developers have built on its platform and launched more than 3 million applications. The Workers platform allows developers to host their apps on Cloudflare's network of servers without having to invest in their own and is comparable with Amazon's similar product, AWS Lambda. 

Startups can apply for the program here with the only eligibility requirement being that they build the core infrastructure of their product on the Workers platform. Participants in the program could get the chance to pitch VCs directly and receive support and mentorship from Cloudflare. 

In 2021, Cloudflare acquired its first company to have been built on the Workers platform, Zaraz, and appears to be using this program to build up more like it. 

Cloudflare has weathered a storm of bad press in the last few months over its refusal and then capitulation to remove KiwiFarms, a forum website involved in appalling harassment and stalking campaigns, from its infrastructure services, effectively taking down the site. The company tends to resist denying services to anyone, but finally conceded to an online pressure campaign to take down the site, saying in this instance lives were at risk.