Cloudflare lines up $1.25B for startups building on Workers
Cloudflare is moving to remove one of the biggest hurdles for early-stage companies built on its developer platform: access to capital. The company today announced the Workers Launchpad, a funding program backed by a group of venture capital firms that have committed up to $1.25 billion for startups whose core infrastructure runs on Cloudflare Workers.
The program is open to any startup built on the Workers platform. Applying takes less than five minutes through the Workers Launchpad portal. Applications are reviewed by Cloudflare's Launchpad team — several members have backgrounds as entrepreneurs or in venture capital — which then matches promising applicants with VC partners that have relevant domain expertise.
Winners, dubbed "Workers Founders," are guaranteed the opportunity to pitch the matched VC partners. New cohorts will be announced quarterly.
The VC lineup
Cloudflare says it approached partners in the venture community with the idea and received strong interest, in part because many investors have already seen Workers-based companies in their portfolios. Cloudflare's network sits in front of roughly 20% of the world's websites, giving the company a unique vantage point for connecting founders with investors.
Why Workers for startups
Cloudflare's pitch is that the platform's design eliminates much of the infrastructure complexity that slows down early-stage teams. The company cites three main advantages:
- Speed. Developers don't need to configure DNS records, maintain certificates, scale clusters, or build deployment pipelines. Cloudflare says it builds on Workers itself partly for this reason — the platform lets its own teams ship quickly.
- Ease of use. Code deploys automatically across Cloudflare's global network in 275+ cities across over 100 countries. Developers don't need to think about availability zones or whether infrastructure can handle a viral spike in traffic.
- Cost predictability. Cloudflare says it won't charge egress fees, addressing a common pain point where cloud providers make onboarding free but charge exorbitant rates to move data out. The company positions its pricing as simple and low-cost at scale.
For companies expanding internationally, Cloudflare also points to features like Jurisdictional Restrictions for Durable Objects, which help with local regulatory compliance.
Dogfooding and a recent acquisition
Cloudflare's confidence in the platform is informed by its own experience. The company built its infrastructure on Workers, and it acquired a startup at the end of last year, Zaraz, that was built entirely on Workers. Zaraz, an Israeli company, secures and accelerates third-party web tools by consolidating multiple network requests into a single one. That acquisition highlighted the breadth of what the Workers community is building, per Cloudflare, and motivated the company to help those startups find funding and mentorship.
Additional perks for applicants
Startups applying to the Workers Launchpad that have raised less than $3 million in total external funding will automatically have the option to receive Cloudflare's Startup Plan. That plan bundles the features of Cloudflare's Pro and Business plans — valued at $2,400 annually — plus higher tiers of the Stream video product, the Teams Zero Trust security suite, and the Workers platform. Cloudflare recently expanded the plan's product coverage to more than triple what it previously included, adding email security, R2, Pages, KV, and other offerings.
Applications submitted by October 31, 2022 are eligible for the Winter 2022 class of Workers Founders. That cohort gains additional support, mentorship, and marketing opportunities, including a virtual bootcamp week covering topics like recruiting, marketing, and sales, plus a virtual Demo Day.
Cloudflare is not providing funding or making funding decisions itself; those decisions rest with the participating venture capital firms. Cloudflare is not a registered broker-dealer, investment adviser, or similar intermediary.
