Open admission of funding from Village Global, which is owned by Microsoft,
https://simplex.chat/blog/20230422-simplex-chat-vision-funding-v5-videos-files-passcode.html

Further on pitchbook, they list the Village Global investment,
https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/528431-50#signals

When asked about it, the lead dev Evgeny Poberezkin said yes it's true, microsoft 

 what do you think if this is open source project and agpl 3.0 licensed. do you think if funded by village global there will be conflict interest ?