User data startup co-founded by Tim Berners-Lee raises $30M

Inrupt, a Boston-based Internet user data control platform, raised $30 million in Series A funding led by Forte Ventures, per TechCrunch.

Why it matters: Inrupt was co-founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who's known as the father of the World Wide Web.

• Other investors include Allstate, Minderoo Foundation and insiders Akamai and Glasswing Ventures.

The bottom line: "Berners-Lee aims to fix some of the problems that have handicapped the so-called open web in an age of huge, closed platforms such as Facebook. Building on ideas developed by an open-source software project called Solid, Inrupt promises a web where people can use a single sign-on for any service and personal data is stored in pods, or personal online data stores, controlled by the user." — Jonathan Weber, Reuters