What Free Our Feeds does

Free Our Feeds is a nonprofit campaign initiative launched in January 2025 to fund and coordinate the development of open, decentralized social media infrastructure based on the AT Protocol (ATProto), the open social protocol underlying Bluesky. Rather than building a commercial product, the organization functions as a grant-making and ecosystem-coordination body, deploying donations toward independent infrastructure, regulatory research, and shared commons resources for the open social web. Its work is structured around three pillars: supporting open infrastructure (PDS providers, relays, indexes), building nonprofit governance to prevent future capture of the ecosystem by commercial interests, and enabling user choice across multiple interoperable applications.

The campaign operates as an initiative of the Modal Foundation (Netherlands) with fiscal sponsorship from Exchange Point Institute (US 501(c)(3)). It is governed by a board of custodians drawn from public-interest technology organizations, including the President of the Mozilla Foundation, the Co-Director of New_Public, and the Director of AI Forensics. As of July 2025, Free Our Feeds had raised approximately $330,000 from more than 2,150 individual donors through a GoFundMe campaign, against a long-term target of $30 million over several years. It had deployed initial grants of $50,000 to the ATProto Community Fund (IndieSky working group), $50,000 toward DSA/GDPR regulatory research, and $40,000 toward CoCoMo (Commons for Content Moderation) under its Eurosky initiative.

The business model is donation-driven rather than revenue-generating. Go-to-market is community-led, leveraging earned media coverage, an open letter signed by 60+ high-profile endorsers, and direct engagement with developers, policymakers, and funders. Primary constituents are developers building on ATProto, policymakers and advocates working on digital governance, institutional funders supporting public-interest technology, and general social media users concerned about platform consolidation. The organization does not sell products or services; all programmatic work is funded through philanthropic contributions and grants.

Name

Free Our Feeds

Legal name

Free Our Feeds

Website

https://freeourfeeds.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2025

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Free Our Feeds is a nonprofit campaign (launched January 2025) that raises and deploys donations to fund open social media infrastructure built on the AT Protocol, serving developers, policymakers, and the general public through grant-making, regulatory research, and shared commons like CoCoMo.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Open Social Infrastructure Advocacy

NAICS

Grantmaking Foundations (813211), Grantmaking and Giving Services (81321), Social Advocacy Organizations (8133)

akta.pro primary industry

Public Charities & Grantmaking Intermediaries (BPAGAKAE)

akta.pro secondary industries

Federated Giving Organizations (e.g., United Way-type) (BPAGAKAG), Private Foundations (BPAGAKAA), RSS/Feed Readers & Subscription Aggregators (MPACAKAD)

Keywords

• Open social infrastructure
• Decentralized social media
• Nonprofit technology advocacy
• Protocol ecosystem funding
• Public interest technology

Headquarters

HQ city

Amsterdam

HQ country

Netherlands

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Others

Revenue model

1. Individual Donations: Crowdfunding campaign through GoFundMe targeting individual donors passionate about open social media. As of July 2025, majority of ~$330,000 raised came from more than 2,150 individual donations.
2. Institutional Funding: Grants and funding instruments for incubator and investment vehicles including venture studios, funds, grants mechanisms, public/private partnerships to support open social infrastructure development.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

Free Our Feeds is a nonprofit campaign that raises and disburses funds to support open, decentralized social media infrastructure based on the AT Protocol (ATProto). Rather than selling a product, it funds shared infrastructure components, content moderation commons, and regulatory research through grants to ecosystem projects such as Eurosky, IndieSky, and CoCoMo, and operates under nonprofit governance to keep the ecosystem accountable to the public.

Product overview

Free Our Feeds is a nonprofit campaign organization (an initiative of the Modal Foundation) focused on funding and advocacy for open, decentralized social media infrastructure. Rather than a product company with a commercial portfolio, it operates as a funding and coordination initiative supporting the AT Protocol ecosystem. Its activities include grant-making (Eurosky, Indiesky), regulatory research, community building, and developing shared resources like CoCoMo (Content Moderation Commons) for the ATProto ecosystem. The organization does not offer commercial products but rather funds and coordinates development of open social media infrastructure.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Eurosky Initiative A Free Our Feeds initiative providing independently operated European ATProto infrastructure — including a European Personal Data Server (PDS) provider, relay, and index — to support experimentation, shared knowledge, and compliance with European regulatory requirements. Targeted at developers and communities building open social media applications in Europe.
• IndieSky / ATProto Community Fund Community fund and working group backed by a $50,000 Free Our Feeds grant to develop independent ATProto infrastructure, support small deployments, and lower infrastructure costs for small projects building on the AT Protocol.
• CoCoMo (Commons for Content Moderation) A shared content moderation commons under the Eurosky initiative, funded with an initial $40,000 Free Our Feeds investment, designed to lower the barrier for ATProto developers and communities to meet content moderation obligations they could not otherwise resource individually.
• ATProto Regulatory Research Program A $50,000-funded research program mapping the AT Protocol's architecture against regulatory obligations for content moderation, particularly the EU Digital Services Act and GDPR, to produce regulatory clarity for ATProto-based applications and ecosystems.

Quantifiable outcome

• 2,150+ individual donors contributing to campaign as of July 2025
• +1 more outcomes

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Partnerships

Five partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Modal FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2025Independent organization based in the Netherlands that houses and incubates Free Our Feeds. Responsible for technology development and services, knowledge governance and policy work, and social participation support. Free Our Feeds is an initiative of the Modal Foundation.
• Exchange Point InstitutecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerUS-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing fiscal sponsorship for Free Our Feeds. Administers funds on behalf of the campaign, enabling tax-deductible donations.
• ATProto Community Fund (IndieSky)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFree Our Feeds backed the ATProto Community Fund with a $50,000 grant to explore and develop independent ATProto infrastructure through the IndieSky working group. Focus on building tools, funding, and research to build and share infrastructure.
• Eurosky InitiativecoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerCollaboration managed by Free Our Feeds including custodians Robin Berjon and Sherif Elsayed-Ali along with Sebastian Vogelsang (founder of Flashes app). Building European social media infrastructure including European PDS provider, relay, and index.
• CoCoMo (Commons for Content Moderation)coreTechnology or IntegrationCommons for content moderation under Eurosky initiative. Initial $40,000 investment to lower barriers for developers and communities wanting to use ATProto who may lack funds or capacity for content moderation obligations.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Signal Foundation: Signal Foundation is a nonprofit that sustains a critical piece of consumer-facing communications infrastructure (Signal messenger) under public-interest governance. It is the canonical precedent for the model Free Our Feeds is trying to replicate for social media/feeds: nonprofit stewardship of infrastructure that private capital would otherwise monopolize.
• Bluesky: Bluesky is the company that created and operates AT Protocol, the open social protocol Free Our Feeds exists to fund independent infrastructure for. The two are deeply intertwined: Free Our Feeds is in effect building the public-interest layer (Eurosky, IndieSky, CoCoMo) on top of Bluesky's protocol, making it the closest comparable entity in product/mission terms.
• Mozilla Foundation: Mozilla Foundation is a public-interest tech nonprofit stewarding an open web/browser. Free Our Feeds custodian Mark Surman is its President, and the two share a near-identical thesis: nonprofit governance of critical internet infrastructure to prevent capture by commercial interests. Structurally and strategically it is the most analogous peer organization.
• Future of Technology Institute: Future of Technology Institute is a public-interest technology organization whose Executive Director, Sherif Elsayed-Ali, is a Free Our Feeds custodian. It works on technology governance, standards, and policy — directly aligned with Free Our Feeds' regulatory and standards-development agenda around ATProto.
• New_Public: New_Public is a nonprofit building public-interest social media products and policy. Its Co-Director Eli Pariser (author of The Filter Bubble) is a Free Our Feeds custodian, and the organizations pursue adjacent — and partially overlapping — missions around healthier, non-extractive social media.
• Social Web Foundation: Social Web Foundation is a nonprofit focused on open social web standards and protocols — the same mission Free Our Feeds pursues around AT Protocol. Mallory Knodel, a Free Our Feeds custodian, is associated with it, and the two organizations are natural co-builders of open social infrastructure governance.

Broad incumbents

• Internet Archive: Internet Archive is a long-established nonprofit stewarding digital public infrastructure (web archiving, open libraries). It is a comparable model for Free Our Feeds — nonprofit ownership of foundational internet assets — and a likely peer for funders evaluating "digital public infrastructure" portfolios.
• Knight Foundation: Knight Foundation is a major US foundation that has historically funded digital/information infrastructure, journalism, and open web initiatives. It is a comparable grantmaking peer and a likely target institutional donor for Free Our Feeds' open social infrastructure agenda.

Emerging players

• Open Collective: Open Collective provides fiscal sponsorship and transparent funding infrastructure for open-source and civic projects. It is structurally analogous to Free Our Feeds' Exchange Point Institute fiscal-sponsorship arrangement and represents a comparable model for channeling community donations into mission-driven work.
• Numeno.AI: Numeno.AI is co-founded by Free Our Feeds custodian Phil Beaudoin and works on AI/data products in the public-interest tech space. It is an emerging player in the broader ecosystem Free Our Feeds is funding, with overlapping people and thematic alignment.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Free Our Feeds