Rapusia: Search Engine Uses Advertising Income To Back Social & Environmental Projects

Rapusia is a new web search engine that helps raise money for the company to fund social and environmental projects globally. Born out of South African charity Tennis World Foundation and sports news Coppini Trading, Rapusia currently contributes 50% of its profits to four projects that span from regulating drinking water to Malawi villages to animal welfare. 

New South African company Rapusia is a web search engine that works much like Google, but half of its advertising income is donated to several charitable social and environmental projects around the world. Every search you enter into Rapusia will earn users a heart, which symbolises the money allocated for donations. Once users have collected enough hearts, they can choose to spend them on their charities of choice.  

Rapusia is also a privacy-safe search engine. Unlike other common web engines, it anonymises every search and data that travels between your browser and their servers are encrypted to ensure no third-party tracking is involved. 

The engine was an initiative founded by partners Federico Coppini, Alessandro Di Pietrantonio and Davide Botticelli, who were looking for new ways to raise money for the Tennis World Foundation, a charity that helps underprivileged children in South Africa, Mauritius and Tanzania. 

Currently, there are four projects that Rapusia is supporting. In addition to the Tennis World Foundation, the company will redirect ad revenue to the Well of Desire, a project helping to regulate the supply of clean drinking water in Malawi villages. It will also support the ACAREF Foundation, an organisation supporting research for the neurological disease ataxia, and animal welfare group Save the Dogs and other Animals.

The company claims that the other of the revenue is used to support the company’s running costs, from marketing and communication to keeping up the platform itself. Rapusia publishes monthly financial reports to ensure transparency and accountability with users. 

According to the company, large search engines such as Google earn somewhere between US$30 to US$50 from each user. By offering alternative platforms for internet users, the company hopes to be able to divert profits that will otherwise end up in large corporations towards positive causes that help the planet and people in need. 

This isn’t the first search engine to have emerged in recent years with the goal for positive impact. Ekoru, for instance, is a hydro-electric powered web search that helps clean up ocean waste and keeps users’ data private by redirecting 60% of its revenue to ocean conservation charities. 

Ecosia, on the other hand, is a tree-planting search engine that is privacy protecting as well. The company pledges 80% of its revenue to support reforestation programmes all over the world, and its server is powered by renewable solar energy. 

Lead image courtesy of Rapusia.