DuckDuckGo gets 10 million USD in new funding to expand globally

DuckDuckGo received this month new 10 million USD in funding led by Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, OMERS Ventures. The Globe and Mail (access reserved to subscribers) reported the amount. OMERS Ventures (OV) is part of the $95 Billion global OMERS pension fund, and is based in Canada.

According to The Globe and Mail, DuckDuckGo is a profitable U.S. firm, which handles about 24 million searches a day and generates more than US$25-million in annual revenue. DuckDuckGo says is profitable since 2014.

DuckDuckGo is one of the main competitors of Google in the search business. DuckDuckGo sees themselves as an internet privacy company, and in the announcement, DuckDuckGo said OMERS pension fund shared the interest in privacy, and the US$10-million investment will “help to continue expanding DuckDuckGo’s privacy protections across the globe.”

How DuckDuckGo generates revenue?

In June, the CEO of DuckDuckGo, explain in a Quora post what is the revenue generation model for DuckDuckGo.

Gabriel Weinberg said DuckDuckGo “is proud to have a business model for a web-based business that’s profitable without making personal information the product.” He explains that “DuckDuckGo is profitable based mostly on keyword-based search ads”; this include non-tracking affiliate partnerships with Amazon and eBay. When users do a purchase, DuckDuckGo receives a commission.