Sovereign Tech Fund

The Sovereign Tech Fund is a funding program from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, aimed at providing financial support to open-source software. The initial funds were allocated by the Bundestag in May 2022.

Purpose of funding
According to the Federal budget of Germany plan, the program aims to promote and secure open-source foundational technologies. It intends to make the open-source ecosystem more resilient against external attacks, thereby enhancing cybersecurity and resilience across the German economy. This initiative fulfills a demand from the coalition government.

The funding is described as time-limited and targeted at specific challenges or security vulnerabilities.

Scope and organization
In 2022, the program had a budget of 13 million Euros, which increased to approximately 22 million euros in 2023 and is expected to reach up to 16 million euros in 2024. The program is initially attached to the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations and is led by Adriana Groh and Fiona Krakenbürger.

Both founders had worked for similar organizations. Adriana Groh had experience from the Open Knowledge Foundation's Prototype Fund. Fiona Krakenbürger had previously worked at the Open Technology Fund.

Supported projects
As of July 2023, the following projects received funding:


 * cURL: 97,500 Euro
 * Drupal: 250,00 Euros
 * Fortran Package Manager: 182,930 Euro
 * GNOME 1 million Euros
 * GopenPGP/OpenPGP.js: 176,955.16 Euro
 * OpenBGPd: 111,000 Euro
 * OpenBLAS: 52,600 Euro
 * Investment in JavaScript, via OpenJS: 874,940 Euro
 * OpenMLS: 190,000 Euro
 * OpenSSH: 200,000 Euro
 * Prossimo: 143,672.90 Euro
 * PHP: 205,000 Euro
 * RubyGems: 195,000 Euro
 * Sequoia-PGP: 200,000 Euro
 * WireGuard: 188,100 Euro
 * Yocto Project: 759,000 Euro