On June 12, The Wall Street Journal released its “Top 25 Tech Companies to Watch in 2018” list, featuring innovative startups in the AI, blockchain and cybersecurity sector. The list ranked Brave Software, the blockchain-based browser created by Firefox and JavaScript creator Brendan Eich at twelveth.
Brave Browser’s Progress
Over the past year, Brave Browser, which compensates publishers with tokens by transparently embedding advertisements through the blockchain, has made a successful attempt in penetrating one of the most difficult industries even for large-scale businesses to maintain dominance over. Largely controlled by Chrome and Firefox, the the market share of the browser industry is mainly dominated by a few key players including Safari, Opera, and Edge.
Last month, after securing a partnership with Dow Jones, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, Brave secured a partnership with YouTube creators Bart Baker and Philip DeFranco to improve the adoption of the Brave browser amongst young users and popular creators.
DeFranco, who has been one of the most influential and beloved YouTubers for many years with more than 6 million subscribers, said at the time:
“I’m so excited to work with Brave and spread the word because, in addition to being such a fantastic product that creates a cleaner, faster, and secure browsing experience, they are thinking about creators, their audiences, and how to support both first. This is a fantastic opportunity for the creators looking to diversify and get the platform that makes it easier to go from creating as a hobby, to creating and supporting yourself, to building your very own business.”
As of May 2018, Brave had more than 2.2 million monthly active users, with the majority of users residing in the US and the EU. Given the rapid increase in its user base within a 12-month period, the Brave team stated that it is confident Brave browser can add millions of new active users by the end of 2018.
More importantly, the Brave Software team emphasized that the utilization of the Brave browser amongst publishers and creators has increased significantly. Already, more than 3,500 websites have become Brave-verified, 10,400 YouTube creators and Twitch streamers have verified with Brave, exposing 180 million YouTube subscribers to Brave.
Recently, Jeremy Stoppelman, the CEO of Yelp, the $3.37 billion review platform, was seen using the Brave browser on Last Night’s 60 Minutes (CBS) special about Google. The usage of the Brave browser by public figures and well recognized entrepreneurs is expected to improve the mainstream awareness of Brave in the upcoming months, which will be crucial for the long-term growth of Brave.
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Other Blockchain Companies
Blockchain software company Blockstream and cryptocurrency-based remittance app Abra also made to the list of WSJ’s top technology companies, ranked at second and thirteenth respectively.
After $37 million in funding and many months in development, Abra globally launched in March with support for over 20 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies. The global launch of Abra and the increase in interest towards cryptocurrencies as remittance and payment methods likely led analysts to consider Abra as an emerging technology company.