The Mozilla Builders program has concluded. You are viewing an archive of this page.
The Mission.
In March of 2020, we put out our call for ideas to fix the internet. More than 2500 of you showed up and kicked off hundreds of projects, organizations and startups to build a better internet. Between the Spring and the Summer cohorts, we invested in 80+ people, projects, and technologies that are reshaping the internet.
People like you built Firefox. People like you will write the next amazing chapter of the internet.
In 2020, the Mozilla Builders Incubator offered 3 programs.
-
The Startup Studio
$75,000 investment in early stage startups. SAFE ($2m cap). Read more...
-
The MVP Lab
$16,000 funding to pre-startup teams. For-profit, non-profit or open source. Read more...
-
The Open Lab
By invitation from among the applicants to Startup Studio & MVP Lab. 10 hrs/wk commitment. Read more...
2020 Spring and Summer Incubator Mentors
Participants in each of our Builders programs were paired with mentors who have built successful startups and shipped dozens of successful products, including more than 25 #1 App Store Hits that reached 1+ billion people.
Prerna Gupta
Visiting Mentor. Prerna is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and author. Her writing has been featured… in the New York Times, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, Forbes, Re/code and more. She was previously Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer at Smule. Prior, Prerna was Co-Founder and CEO of Khush, the leading developer of intelligent music apps, like the #1 hit app Songify, an app that turns speech into music. Her product videos reached over 250 million views. Prerna was voted one of FastCompany’s Most Influential Women in Technology 2011. She is also a budding angel investor and Resident Mentor at 500 Startups.
Daniel Vogel
Visiting Mentor. Daniel is CEO of Bitso, Mexico’s first and now largest cryptocurrency exchange. Daniel is… committed to forging the foundation for a new cryptocurrency economy in Mexico - one that can transform remittances and make truly frictionless international commerce a possibility. Daniel holds an MBA from Harvard, attended Stanford for his undergraduate degree in Computer Systems, and has a strong background in engineering and product.
Matt Mullenweg
Visiting Mentor. Matt is an American entrepreneur and web developer living in Houston. He is known for developing the free and … open-source web software WordPress. After dropping out of the University of Houston, he worked at CNET Networks from 2004 to 2006 until he quit and founded Automattic, an internet company whose brands include WordPress.com, Akismet, Gravatar, VaultPress, IntenseDebate, Crowdsignal, and Tumblr.
Emily Kager
Visiting Mentor. Emily studied neuroscience and classical studies at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, then got an MA in Interdisciplinary CS at Mills… in Oakland. Emily is currently a mobile developer for Mozilla in San Francisco, working mostly on Android products.
Parisa Tabriz
Visiting Mentor. Parisa is currently Head of Product, Engineering, & UX of Chrome at Google and was previously a Senior Director of Engineering. Parisa’s… extensive experience with security make her a natural champion for a more secure web. Her leadership of Project Zero at Google and Co-Founding Our Securities Advocates, as well as driving the adoption of HTTPS traffic at Google and across the Web more than warrant her the moniker “Security Princess”. Featured in Forbes, WIRED, and Fortune magazines, Parisa is a top tech visionary in the realm of security.
Patrick Lee
Patrick is a serial entrepreneur best known for being a co-founder and founding CEO of Rotten Tomatoes (rottentomatoes.com), a leading … entertainment website focused on movie reviews and news. He is an advisor to a number of startups including Casetify, ChargeSPOT, FableLabs, Instaread, Kiwibot, Oishii, WePloy, and Zeuss Technologies; and has mentored and/or supported organizations including SOSV, Berkeley SkyDeck, Mozilla Builders, Blue Startups, Founder Institute, and Rock The Boat Podcast. Patrick holds a BA in Cognitive Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Holly Liu
Holly has been a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator working closely with over 200 companies. Prior to that, she… founded Kabam, a venture backed mobile gaming company, in 2006 with UC Berkeley alumni. Kabam has built games for beloved franchises such as Marvel, Hobbit and Fast and Furious that has continuously been Top 10 in both iOs and Google Play. Her work has contributed to record revenue growth for Kabam year over year from $0 to $400MM annually, that led Kabam into the unicorn club in 2014. She led the product design for Kabam’s award-winning “Kingdoms of Camelot” franchise, which has grossed over $350 million in less than four years. In 2017 Kabam exited to FoxNext and Netmarble.
Noah Karesh
Noah is an entrepreneur, technologist, and innovator. At his latest startup, Noah was the founder and CEO of Feastly, a venture backed culinary marketplace that … was acquired in 2019. He led the company across all areas with a particular focus on product, strategy, fundraising, and leadership. He is a thought leader on the interplay between hospitality and technology as well as on marketplaces and experiential commerce. He has appeared on the largest media platforms including The New York Times, CNN, WSJ, MSNBC, Wired, Forbes, Fast Company, among others. He is an advisor to startup and founders as well as works with venture funds on deal sourcing and investments.
Tanya Soman
Tanya was a Venture Partner at 500 Startups, one of the most active seed stage venture capital firms in the world. She focuses on seed stage investment opportunities … in the consumer space and has worked hands on with 100s of companies globally. Most recently, she launched Silicon Valley Squares, an online pitch show for founders around the world to get feedback on their pitch from Silicon Valley investors. Previously, she worked in AdTech in NYC and holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Babson College.
Chris Ategeka
Chris is an award-winning repeat-entrepreneur and Engineer. He is the Founder/ CEO at UCOT a company that has created a unique model to support and fund … early-stage startups creating solutions to unintended consequences of technology. Before that, he founded Hourglass ventures a fund that supports visionary entrepreneurs from the African continent who come from the underprivileged background- and need a Friends and Family round of financing to get their ideas off the ground. Chris has won many international awards for his work, TEDFellow; Forbes Magazine 30Under30, and most recently he has been honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader (YGL). Chris holds a Bachelor of Science, and Master’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Kathy Pham
Kathy is a Computer Scientist and Fellow (past and present) at Mozilla, Harvard, the MIT Media Lab, and Rita Allen Foundation. She has committed herself to the intersection of… technology, ethics, and society. With experience in product development, engineering, and healthcare at Google and the US Digital Service in the White House, Kathy has invaluable expertise in creating products with a focus on fairness, justice, and equitability.
Mark Mayo
Previously Chief Product Officer for Firefox as well as the technical founder of multiple startups, Mark has mastered… the process of taking a product from birth to launch. His experience incubating Node.js at Joyent as well as his 25+ years of experience in technology make him the perfect resource for building tools that matter.
Afua Bruce
Currently on the Executive Team at DataKind, and most recently the Director of Engineering at New America's… Public Interest Tech Program, Afua brings deep experience across all government levels and NGOs. Her projects have spanned foster care, criminal justice reform, the opioid epidemic, financial inclusion, and more.
Maria Alegre
As founder and CEO of Chartboost, Maria built and grew her company from 2 to 100 people. She raised $21M… led by Sequoia Capital and built a profitable company that empowers mobile game developers around the world to build successful businesses. Most recently, Maria has spent time in Rwanda, Nigeria and Kenya, connecting with African entrepreneurs and building bridges with Silicon Valley.
Patrick Lu
Founder of Quant Five and graduate of UC Berkeley, Patrick brings quality development experience… and knows how to build things fast. With Software Engineering experience at Apple and full stack expertise across React, Node, Django, and Java, Patrick is the person to go to when you want quality and speed. Patrick was a Y Combinator Fellow.
Neeharika Bhartiya
Neeharika is a serial entrepreneur. She founded Sonar, a SaaS startup acquired by Marchex in 2020, where she led… product, sales and customer success, closing six-figure annual agreements with companies like Jefferies, Zillow, Realtor, DriveTime, and Bird. She has a technical background, attended MIT and is a mentor at 500 Startups. In her spare time, Neeharika volunteers with AllRaise, helping startups with MVP planning, product management techniques and enterprise sales.
Bart Decrem
With 25 #1 App Store hits, his work on the Firefox 1.0 launch, and having founded Tapulous (remember Tap Tap … Revenge?) Bart has a LOT of experience building apps that hundreds of millions of users will enjoy. He's built 5 startups and community groups and was the GM and SVP for Disney's smartphone games group.
Bijan Marashi
A startup coach in the Silicon Valley with 25+ years of industry experience, Bijan has more than a dozen venture… financings, 8 acquisitions with major companies including LinkedIn, Yahoo, and Mozilla and university lab spinouts. Over the years, Bijan has worked with many repeat founders who have enjoyed his sense of humor, ability to develop + phase product strategies while bringing out their A-game.