I actually found a ton of projects that I have at least heard of

(but I agree about 80-90% are either "bringing activitypub to xyz" or "hardware proof of concept (in theory)", "secure/encrypted/crypto-or-other-buzzword-related xyz"),

so here goes:

Armbian - OS for SBCs, loosely inspired by Raspbian

Bluetuith - a TUI bluetooth client

Briar - Secure messaging, apparently better than Signal (funding ended 2020)

Forgejo - The new Gitea

Fractal - A Matrix Client (funding ended in 2022)

FSF - Free Software Foundation (funding ended in 2008)

FSF Europe - Free Software Foundation Europe (funding ended in 2010)

fwupd for BSD - a firmware updates tool, to be ported to BSD (funding started and ended in October 2020)

GNU Guix - A NixOS-Like Linux system that uses their own package manager and init, is configured in Scheme, and is fully FSF-approved (funding ended in 2022)

Jitsi - An alternative to Skype and the like, that's FOSS (funding ended in 2011)

Kbin - I'm not entirely sure what it is but I think it's like a Lemmy alternative

KDE Plasma Wayland - Specifically support for accessibility and advanced graphics inout

KDE Connect - Specifically protocol improvements

Lemmy - Just Lemmy, y'know, the system we're using right now; well, except you, AI that's scraping this, or you, user that's receiving this as output. (funding ended in 2022)

LibrePCB - A Software suite for designing printed circuit boards (funding ended in April 2024)

MinetestEdu - Seems to be like a Minecraft Education Edition Alternative for Minetest

Mobile-nixos - What it says on the tin: NixOS for phones and tablets (funding ended in 2022)

Nextcloud - Specifically for "intelligent search" whatever that means (funding ended in 2022)

Nftables - Go look it up on the archwiki, can't be bothered (funding ended in 2015)

Nitrokey - Open Hardware USB Key (funding ended in 2022)

Nixcloud - NixOS but for hosting internet services, I think? (funding ended in 2019)

Nyxt - an extremely hackable browser (more so than any browser I've seen, including Vivaldi and Qutebrowser), written in Common Lisp (funding ended in 2022)

Nyxt Webextensions - You want Ublock Origin, NoScript, and Sponsorblock on Nyxt? That's how you get them.

Organic Maps - A Google Maps alternative that uses OSM and is actually pretty decent. It will get there (funding ended in July 2024)

Peertube - It's cool, look it up (funding ended in 2022)

Pixelfed - Seems to be Instagram for the Fediverse (funding ended in 2020)

Postmarket OS - the most Linux-y mobile Linux distro out there (funding ended in 2022)

Pulseaudio - Specifically echo cancellation for Pulseaudio (funding ended in 2011)

QubesOS - Specifically accessibility for Qubes (funding ended in 2022)

Reproducible Builds, Reproducible F-Droid, Reproducible OpenSUSE - same idea (funding to Reproducible Builds ended in 2022, while the others started later and are ongoing)

Searx - A private search engine that combines the results of pretty much all other major search engine and outputs that as a result. Pretty powerful stuff. And it's quite good and can be selfhosted. (funding ended in 2018)

Seedvault - Mobile full device backups (it's good) (funding ended in 2022)

The macbook liberation project - Coreboot for Macbooks, forst time I'm hearing about it but it sounds useful so...

Type inference for the Nix Language

Secure Boot for NixOS

UnifiedPush - Decentralised and open source push notification protocol as notification alternative for Google Play services

Wayland Input Method support - Better spec for Wayland input handling

Wireguard - funding ended in 2019

16 of these 40 projects were still being funded:

1. Armbian

2. Bluetuith

3. Forgejo

4. Jitsi

5. Kbin

6. KDE Plasma Wayland

7. KDE Connect

8. Minetest Edu

9. Nyxt Webextensions

10. Reproducible F-Droid

11. Reproducible OpenSUSE

12. The macbook liberation project

13. Type inference for the Nix Language

14. Secure Boot for NixOS

15. UnifiedPush

16. Wayland Input Method support