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Cyanogen Mod Raises $23 Million Funding All Set To Become Major Android Player

Posted by samzenpus on from the show-me-the-money dept.

sfcrazy writes "The newly formed company has opened the next chapter of its history by bagging $23 million financing from A16Z (Andreessen Horowitz). CyanogenMod was recently incorporated as a company after getting Benchmark Capital and Redpoint Ventures as partners and raising $7 million in funding."

11 of 133 comments (clear)

  1. Cyanogenmod, by lukemartinez · · Score: 1, Interesting

    CyanogenMod, now with advertising.

    1. Re:Cyanogenmod, by SpectreBlofeld · · Score: 5, Interesting

      They don't necessarily have to make their revenue all from ads.

      They can provide a polished, stable version of Android that is in many ways better than the original and provide support to the phone manufacturers (perhaps more cheaply than Google?), directly getting a cut from handset sales.

      They could start and manage their own app store and take a cut if app purchases.

      By working directly with manufacturers, they can spend less time hacking/reverse engineering stuff in order to get it to work with the hardware and instead focus on making their flavor of Android better and therefore desirable on handsets. Cyanogenmod has always been about being cutting-edge - pioneering many features long before AOSP. And not just 'fun' features but really important stuff like fine-detailed app permissions management (which has been WAY overdue). If they can now have a say in hardware design, I say, hell yes, bring it on. I hope to see cutting-edge badass smartphones with easy root access, high customize-ability/theming, and bleeding edge features.

      Lately I've been keeping an eye on the Sailfish project, but this news has refreshed my interest in the future of Android in general. Let's not be too cynical and assume it's all going to be about advertising. And even if there are ads, does anyone really think the ads could be any worse or more intrusive than the current state of Android in general?

      Maybe Canonical has spoiled everyone's attitudes toward the idea of monetizing open source. There's certainly a comparison to be made here. I'm not well-versed enough in the behind-the-scenes stuff to compare, but I wonder what the degree of impact Cyanogen has had on the Android world is, compared to Ubuntu's contribution to Linux, and what lessons we can take from the latter and apply to the former?

    2. Re:Cyanogenmod, by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They don't necessarily have to make their revenue all from ads.

      They can provide a polished, stable version of Android that is in many ways better than the original and provide support to the phone manufacturers (perhaps more cheaply than Google?), directly getting a cut from handset sales.

      They could start and manage their own app store and take a cut if app purchases.

      By working directly with manufacturers, they can spend less time hacking/reverse engineering stuff in order to get it to work with the hardware and instead focus on making their flavor of Android better and therefore desirable on handsets. Cyanogenmod has always been about being cutting-edge - pioneering many features long before AOSP. And not just 'fun' features but really important stuff like fine-detailed app permissions management (which has been WAY overdue). If they can now have a say in hardware design, I say, hell yes, bring it on. I hope to see cutting-edge badass smartphones with easy root access, high customize-ability/theming, and bleeding edge features.

      Lately I've been keeping an eye on the Sailfish project, but this news has refreshed my interest in the future of Android in general. Let's not be too cynical and assume it's all going to be about advertising. And even if there are ads, does anyone really think the ads could be any worse or more intrusive than the current state of Android in general?

      Maybe Canonical has spoiled everyone's attitudes toward the idea of monetizing open source. There's certainly a comparison to be made here. I'm not well-versed enough in the behind-the-scenes stuff to compare, but I wonder what the degree of impact Cyanogen has had on the Android world is, compared to Ubuntu's contribution to Linux, and what lessons we can take from the latter and apply to the former?

      BLAH blah blah.

      They're just hoping to be bought by google, later, for much MORE money.

      how exactly do you buy a community developed distro?

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    3. Re:Cyanogenmod, by grcumb · · Score: 4, Interesting

      They don't necessarily have to make their revenue all from ads.

      They can provide a polished, stable version of Android that is in many ways better than the original and provide support to the phone manufacturers (perhaps more cheaply than Google?), directly getting a cut from handset sales.

      That seems to be the obvious value in this company. Phone makers have demonstrated time and again how badly they manage their own Android distros, and how much they see them as a cost-centre rather than an opportunity to better position themselves in the market.

      Given the state of current MBAThink, why wouldn't they want to outsource the heavy lifting of distro management to a company that not only does it well, but does it better than their competitors? If CM play their cards right, they could start a bidding war, or at very least, make sure that their's is a seller's market.

      I especially like this idea because it upsets the playing field a little. Cyanogenmod can be ported at low cost to a number of generic platforms, allowing cheap(er) phone makers to gussy up their product without much effort. So to the consumer, there won't be much to choose between an SGS4 and a KungPaoDuk Delightra XXS Happy Screen. (Visually, at least.)

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    4. Re:Cyanogenmod, by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They can provide a polished, stable version of Android that is in many ways better than the original and provide support to the phone manufacturers (perhaps more cheaply than Google?), directly getting a cut from handset sales.

      I've got an old Droid 3 that I like the hardware on but never did much like the software, which is now obsolete. One dev got 4.2 working except for the camera - if CM got the camera driver from Moto ($) and put out a KitKat build, I'd gladly pay $30-50 for that.

      That's not a terrible business model. I'd also pay that kind of money yearly for an audited and updated build on any phone I carry.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  2. What about contributers? by CryptoJones · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What do people that have contributed to the code base get? Who is getting money for this? I don't understand how you can go from an opensource project to a for-profit project.

    --
    "Chance favors the prepared mind." ~Me
    1. Re:What about contributers? by thisisauniqueid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What do people that have contributed to the code base get? Who is getting money for this? I don't understand how you can go from an opensource project to a for-profit project.

      They get nada. I implemented one of the features that caused CM to explode in popularity very early on, and cyanogen did very well out of donations from it, but I never saw a cent of it. I gently raised the issue one day, and he made it pretty clear that he had no intention of divvying up the wealth. Granted, he has put a heckofalot more time total into hacking on CM than I have, but actually, I would have spent a lot more time hacking on it if it weren't for that experience. That was the last code I wrote for CM.

    2. Re:What about contributers? by citizenr · · Score: 5, Interesting

      they get loved tenderly in the ass
      https://plus.google.com/+GuillaumeLesniak/posts/L8FJkrcahPs

      --
      Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
  3. Are the Android OEMs banned from shipping CM? by mystikkman · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I remember when Google threatened Acer with losing the Play Store and all Google app to stop Aliyun, claiming that the secret rules of the "Open" Handset Alliance prevented Acer from shipping Android forks.

    http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/3

    Anyone know if the same rules prohibit all the major OEMs from shipping CM or Jolla(which has Android app support via a third party Dalvik implementation) phones?

    The major OEMs include Acer, Asus, Dell, Foxconn, Fujitsu, HTC, Huawei, Kyocera, Lenovo, LG, Motorola, NEC, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Toshiba, and ZTE.

  4. A little scared but not much by WaffleMonster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here is the deal as I see it yes I'm worried all of this money will erode the point of cynaogenmod (e.g. selling-out) yet when you look at it most of the value of cyanogen is bottled up in their amazing build platform which is open source and actively used by other competing mods. If cyanogen gets too far off the rails or is perceived as such it will be forked and that will be that.

  5. Re:Sold down the river... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Why do Microsoft shills think Android is bombarded with ads? I realize you congregate in a cesspool known as Windows, but you should really try and use the platform before displaying your ignorance. Speaking of cesspools, have you seen the windows phone store lately? It's really one of the most pathetic things I've ever seen.