With 25M users, Bluesky gets a $1M fund to take on social media and AI

Successful tech companies follow a typical pattern: from product to platform where other startups build businesses on top of theirs. To spur that, they often launch a fund. In this case, someone else is launching a fund to help fast-growing social media site Bluesky, which now claims 25 million users.

On Wednesday, open source and Python bigwig Peter Wang announced the fund, dubbed Skyseed, with an initial $1 million war chest. Bluesky is the decentralized social app from Jack Dorsey (though Dorsey left the Bluesky board in May). It launched five years ago and has taken off as an alternative to Elon Musk’s X.

The fund will offer grants to those building on Bluesky’s open source AT Protocol. It’s looking for tech like data privacy controls for AI usage and apps for parents/children and local communities.

Correction: Bluesky says that this fund is independent of the company. This story has been updated to reflect that information.