Element, the UK-based developers of secure collaboration and messaging app for the Matrix protocol, have secured $30 million in Series B funding. The funding round was led by Protocol Labs and Metaplanet, a fund set up Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, while existing investors Automattic and Notion also participated, highlighting a broad confidence in the importance of platforms like Matrix and the app ecosystem around them.
A quick favourite with governments
Element, led by co-founders Matthew Hodgson, who serves as CEO and CTO and Amandine Le Pape, who is the COO, was involved in the development of the Matrix protocol. The protocol is open source, allowing anyone to run their own secure messaging and collaboration server, rather than relying on large corporates for their needs. Matthew Hodgson explains to UKTN, “it provides end-to-end encryption for any kind of communication over the Internet. And anybody can participate in it. The global Matrix network has got 35 million users spread over about 76 thousand servers. Some are Raspberry Pi home servers, and some are massive data centre deployments.” Element’s provides the tools for organisations using this, and recently renewed its contract with the French government to provide secure tools for its 5.5 million civil servants.
Element’s early successes have largely been with governments; consumer use is largely among early adopting and privacy-aware users. However, with Germany’s recent decision to mandate Matrix within its healthcare system, that might be about to change. ...