Calls: Send in your ideas. Deadline April 1, 2024

Welcome to NLnet Foundation

We support organisations and people who contribute to an open internet for all. We fund projects that help fix the internet through open hardware, open software, open standards, open science and open data. After its historical contribution to the early internet in Europe in the 1980's, NLnet has been financially supporting the open internet since 1997.

Projects we support

NLnet has contributed funding to many important and very visible projects around fundamental standards from securing the core routing protocols and the domain name system of the internet to safer email, vendor-independent videoconferencing, more reliable wireless networks and private instant messaging - all based on open standards and verifiable open source software and/or hardware. It spawned the world-renowned NLnet Labs, and supported great open source projects like Jitsi, Peertube, WireGuard, NoScript, Tor Hidden Services, GPLv3, GNUnet, and CryptPad. And many more ....


Active funds


NGI Zero Core logo

NGI Zero Core focuses on the modernisation of the internet architecture. It aims to upgrade the open internet infrastructure, by funding technological building blocks and developing and delivering new internet standards to users — working towards a more resilient, trustworthy and sustainably open internet for all.

NGI Zero Commons Fund logo

The goal of the NGI Zero Commons Fund is to reclaim the public nature of the internet. It helps to deliver, mature and scale new and existing internet commons across the whole technology spectrum, from libre silicon to middleware, from P2P infrastructure to convenient end user applications.


NGI Pilots


NGI TALER logo

NGI TALER is a pilot programme with the very concrete objective to roll out a new, best-in-class electronic payment system. Part of the budget is reserved for open calls to fund additional free and open source efforts that are aligned with NGI TALER.

NGI Mobifree logo

NGI Mobifree is a pilot programme designed to create more ethical and human mobile software. Let's get beyond the status quo of mobile software, and create a virtuous cycle of innovation within and on top of the foundation of Mobifree.



In addition we run the NGI Zero Review programme, which supports projects within the larger Next Generation Internet initiative to improve their quality and inclusiveness — for instance by hardening security and privacy, improving accessibility, tackling open source licensing compliance issues and through standardisation. >> more...

Coming soon: we invite you to have a look at the upcoming Next Generation Internet pilot: NGI Fediversity. Fediversity is a comprehensive effort to bring easy-to-use, hosted cloud services with service portability and personal freedom at their core to everyone. And if you are working in this domain, we might be able to onboard your project through a grant.