I don't know anyone who has raised VC funding for an open source project. The most surprising example of this for me is Socket.io (https://github.com/socketio/

I don't know anyone who has raised VC funding for an open source project. The most surprising example of this for me is Socket.io (https://github.com/socketio/socket.io https://github.com/socketio/socket.io) - This is a hugely popular open source project; but it was never able to get funding on its own merit - To the VC world, it was always seen as a 'side project' of another startup - Not as a fundable project in its own right. The archnemesis of open source infrastructure software are services. By funding services exclusively, VCs have been actively pushing the adoption of services to the detriment of open source... For example, instead of encouraging startups to run their own open source database engine (which is quite feasible), startups may be tempted to use a hosted database-as-a-service instead (because it was advertised to them). Instead of using an open source CMS and host it themselves, they will use a hosted as-a-service solution (even though it's more expensive and often doesn't make sense for this startup economically). Instead of doing their own performance monitoring for their app (using an open source tool), they will use a service instead. Not so long ago, the 'as-a-service' companies which did well were the ones which had roots in open source and actually did a lot of OSS work themselves (E.g. Wordpress, Red Hat). Now you have a lot of as-a-service startups which came out of nowhere, raised a boatload of VC funding and are stealing all the limelight away from smaller OSS (pioneering) projects who have been working towards a specific vision for many years.