Mark Zuckerberg's former mentor has invested in privacy app Jumbo, which helps you mass delete old social media posts

• Jumbo, a privacy management app that launched in April 2019, just announced it's raised $8 million in Series A funding.
• The round was led by Balderton Capital and investors include Roger McNamee, former adviser to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and now an outspoken critic of the social media giant.
• McNamee told BI he was impressed by Jumbo's efforts in helping consumers navigate the "jungle" of internet companies.
• Jumbo has rolled out a major update to its app to accompany the round, adding paid subscriptions as an option for users.

Privacy app Jumbo has raised $8 million to test whether privacy-conscious consumers might pay for a service that wipes old social media posts and gives granular controls over data.

New York-based Jumbo launched in April 2019 on a free-to-use basis, and has reached 60,000 monthly active users, CEO Pierre Valade told Business Insider.

The Series A fundraise accompanies a big update to the app, comprising a makeover and adding new functionality. Jumbo is also adding two premium tiers for the first, asking users to pay what they think is fair for their subscriptions.

The free version of Jumbo allows you to go into a limited number of platforms and services you use and granularly control how they share your data. It also alerts you to any security breaches, and lets you set up auto-delete on your posts to social media so any posts older than 6 months, for example, get automatically deleted.

The free tier includes Facebook, with users able to easily delete and archive old posts and photos, change up exactly who can see what on their profile, and install two-factor authentication.

Jumbo lets you pay as much or little as you want

The new two-tier paid subscription model, Jumbo Plus and Jumbo Pro and gives users the ability to control their privacy on more platforms.

Jumbo Plus allows users to manage what data is hoovered up on Instagram, Amazon Alexa, and Facebook Messenger for example. Jumbo Pro adds LinkedIn to this list, and allows you to block 400 ad trackers.

In an unusual move, the app allows you to choose how much you pay for your subscription. The app gives you a slider with recommended price bands from $0 to $14.99. "We trust that you'll support us fairly and allow us to continue our work," Jumbo's blog reads.

In Jumbo's blog announcing the update, the company says some users may not have to pay at all.

"You might need access to Jumbo Pro to scan your LinkedIn while you're looking for work. You might be a student who needs to clean up your Instagram with Jumbo Plus. There are a lot of cases beyond these examples where you need a tool to protect your privacy, but don't have access to the cash at the moment," Valade writes in the blog.

Users strapped for cash are encouraged to email Jumbo's support team to ask for a free subscription, briefly detailing their situation.

Developing a business model to counter 'surveillance capitalism'

The $8 million fundraise is being led by venture capital company Balderton Capital, but included among the investors is Roger McNamee, a former Facebook investor and adviser to Mark Zuckerberg who has turned into one of Facebook's biggest critics. In June 2019 McNamee said Facebook was turning its users into "data voodoo dolls."

Facebook has faced scrutiny for years over the amount of data it collects on users, and the way in which it uses that information in targeted ads.

McNamee told Business Insider he first became aware of Jumbo soon after the free version of its app launched, and was enthused by its "brilliant approach to privacy."

"When Jumbo launched and I got the product, I was sold within five minutes. It was so obviously filling a core need," said McNamee. He then sent a message to Jumbo's general email inbox, and Pierre Valade replied to set up a meeting in Brooklyn. "He laid out to me a really brilliant vision of being a defender for consumers in the jungle of internet platforms."

Since that meeting nine months ago McNamee was impressed by how many products and features Jumbo's team of 21 were able to ship, and when Valade asked if he wanted to invest, McNamee took him up on the offer despite easing up on investing in recent years.

"Investing is no longer the core of my activity, but I want these guys to be successful because Pierre's vision, the company's product, they fill a unique role in protecting consumers from powerful internet companies."

How to make privacy profitable

"This funding gives us until February 2022 before we run out of money, and our goal is to be profitable before then. We need approximately 100,000 Jumbo customers to build a sustainable business," Jumbo said in its blog post.

The idea is that consumers will be hungry for an antidote to free apps where it has become painfully clear in the wake of news stories such as the Cambridge Analytica data scandal that if you're not paying for the product, you are the product.

Valade said the company has already seen 15% of users switch to subscribed versions of the app, and that conversion rate was a pleasant surprise.

"In many ways for us it was kind of confusing for users before they could become customers [thinking] how will we make money. I think a lot of people were maybe not trying Jumbo because it was free, and people know when it's free at some point someone's gotta pay somewhere," he said.

He believes adding the subscription service will strengthen trust in Jumbo's brand, as users will know the brand doesn't need to monetize their data to make money.

"When you're the CEO of a privacy company what really matters most at the end of the day is how much trust people have got in your brand," he said.