Berlin-based startup Crowd.dev raises €2.2m to launch the open-source platform for community-led growth

Berlin-based startup Crowd.dev announced it has raised €2.2 million to improve how developer-first businesses harness online communities. Seedcamp and Lightbird led the pre-seed funding with participation from Possible Ventures, Angel Invest, NevrSeen, and notable angel investors, including Russ Heddleston, Cedric Sellin, Matthäus Krzykowski, and Christian Stiebner. This funding marks the release of Crowd.dev's open-source offering.

Devin Hunt, Venture Partner, Seedcamp: ''We at Seedcamp have backed many developer-focused companies, and we have seen firsthand how important community building is to their long-term growth. crowd.dev's tools give a startup all they need to radically simplify community-led growth. Their open-source, developer-first approach is a game changer for any business whose developer community is critical to their success.''

Crowd.dev  was created with the belief that the future of business relies on thriving communities - particularly in the fast-growing open-source and developer space. Developers have increased buying power when it comes to the technologies their companies use, and the way to their hearts isn’t through paid ads or sales reps but through authentic community interactions. In other words, developer-first companies need communities as a growth channel.

While playing a central role for every developer-first company, community building is complex and time-consuming work. The developer community tech stack is fragmented, and organizations are stuck managing endless platforms (think Github, Discord, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) and working with incomplete data. This makes it tricky to return tangible business value from community bulding efforts.

Jonathan Reimer, Co-founder at Crowd.dev: ''I’ve previously built communities in the open-source space and experienced firsthand the difficulties involved, with no existing tools that supported the integrations and features I needed. With my Co-founder Joan I therefore started building crowd.dev in 2021. We built the product with the vision to help developer-first companies find, engage, support, and collaborate with the right developers, to ultimately help them reach their growth goals through a vibrant community.'' 

Since the beginning of 2022, several hundred organizations have joined Crowd.dev's closed beta, including some of the fastest growing open-source companies in the world, like Meilisearch, CrowdSec, or Dragonfly.

www.crowd.dev