Startups

DuckDuckGo raises $10 million with backing from Canadian pension fund

It's the largest round to date raised by the Paoli, Pa.-based company, which has seen interest rise in its privacy-minded search engine.

At DuckDuckGo's offices in Chester County. (Courtesy photo)

The venture capital arm of a Canadian pension fund just led a $10-million round into Paoli, Pa.-based DuckDuckGo, the privacy-minded search engine founded 10 years ago by Gabriel Weinberg.

Per Weinberg, who’s also an angel investor, the funds will help grow the company’s current headcount of 51 and increase its global footprint.

“We are hiring globally, better tuning our search engine results for local markets, and expanding the channels we use to market DuckDuckGo to have more of a global focus,” Weinberg told the Inquirer.

As part of the deal, OMERS Ventures will have a non-controlling share in DuckDuckGo, which says it has been profitable since 2014 and had only taken on $3 million in institutional capital prior to this round.

The company has made a name for itself by adhering to a tracker-free privacy standard, blocking ad-tracking cookies and keeping users search history private. So how does the company make money? There’s no secret formula. Similar to other websites and social networking sites, DuckDuckGo runs ads.

Increased concerns over privacy — particularly around scandals like the NSA surveillance program — have been good for business. Around the time when Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica leak came around, the search engine logged its all-time high daily search record, at an impressive 25.5 million searches.

Companies: DuckDuckGo

Before you go...

Please consider supporting Technical.ly to keep our independent journalism strong. Unlike most business-focused media outlets, we don’t have a paywall. Instead, we count on your personal and organizational support.

Our services Preferred partners The journalism fund
Engagement

Join our growing Slack community

Join 5,000 tech professionals and entrepreneurs in our community Slack today!

Trending

16 places to responsibly dispose of old electronics in Philadelphia

19 tech and entrepreneurship events to check out before the holidays

Are digital navigators the answer to closing Philadelphia’s tech gap?

Expect high-speed internet at 100 Philly rec centers in 2025, Verizon says

Technically Media