• A new fund aimed at developing tools for Bluesky has been created and it’s called Skyseed.
• It will start with $1 million and has already begun vetting submissions from developers.
• The fund was not started by Bluesky, but rather open source-focused entrepreneur Peter Wang.

Bluesky has quickly become the social media platform of choice for those wanting to move away from X (formerly Twitter).

In fact, it recently surpassed 25 million user mark and while that is nowhere near the ~1 billion that X reportedly touts, it is indeed enough to garner interest from those keen to see how the platform develops.

To that end, a fund has been created by open-source-focused entrepreneur Peter Wang, starting with $1 million in order to help developers create tools for Bluesky.

As TechCrunch points out, it is quite common for startups and social media platforms in particular to start a fund of their own once a specific scale has been reached, but in this case the Skyseed Fund as it has been called is not strictly affiliated with Bluesky.

That said, it is described as a venture capital fund focused solely on “Bluesky and its open ecosystem”.

“While much has been written recently about Bluesky’s stunning growth, its real power lies in the open protocol (AT Protocol) that the team has pioneered. The Skyseed Fund will accelerate and incubate innovation in that open ecosystem,” explained Wang in an announcement regarding the fund’s launch.

“In the last month, I have seen people quickly build new kinds of social apps for music, book reviews, photo sharing, maps, and much more, all leveraging Bluesky’s open social graph. They demonstrate that we may finally be able to break out of today’s walled gardens, whose predatory business models exploit users via dopamine addiction. Bluesky and the AT Protocol can provide the substrate for an Internet that promotes healthy online connections, as opposed to rewarding the most polarizing and rage-baiting behavior,” he added.

While it remains to be seen whether the platform will be able to stick to its core tenants as more users head to it, the Skyseed Fund has already begun the process of vetting proposals for both products and developer grants.

Here it notes that it will operate as a, “traditional venture-style pre-seed terms but will also fund projects that can graduate into more sustainable for-profit or cooperative business models. Additionally, Skyseed has reserved a portion of capital for pure development grants.”

“The Fund will initially focus on improving the AT Protocol ecosystem in areas such as data privacy and local-first experiences; user-centric design for parents, children, and small communities; and data protocols for respecting user intent and data rights with regards to AI and social media,” the announcement concluded.

For those interested in submitting proposals, the best channel to do so is by contacting the @skyseed.fund directly on Bluesky.

[Image – Photo by Yohan Marion on Unsplash]