Above: The logo for the Puffin mobile Web browser
CloudMosa — the maker of
Puffin, a cloud-powered mobile browser — today revealed it has secured at least
$18 million in funding and may raise $4.9 million more as it charges past the
25 million user mark.
Founded by
Shioupyn Shen in
2009, CloudMosa says its browser shifts the workload from your mobile device to its remote servers. As a result, the Puffin mobile web browser is “wicked fast” — at least, that’s what CloudMosa says when promoting its
three apps, Puffin Web Browser Free, Puffin Web Browser, and Puffin Academy (a browser designed for K-12 students).
Aside from potential speed benefits, part of Puffin’s claim to fame is its support of
Flash on mobile. As you might guess, Puffin can run flash because it offloads all the work to its
Dell cloud servers.
Inventec Ventures may have participated in the $18 million round; the firm’s vice president Gia-Shuh Jang is listed as a director in CloudMosa’s
public filing with the SEC. We’ve reached out to CloudMosa for more.
Puffin is available on both iOS and Android and apparently ranks among
the top tablet browsers in 40 countries by usage.