Space Monkey, the startup offering a peer-to-peer alternative to cloud storage services like Dropbox, just raised $2.25 million in a seed round of funding.
The company says that it’s combining the benefits of both local storage and the cloud. Every Space Monkey customer gets their own storage device, so they can access their files without having to worry about download times or pay the higher cost of cloud storage (which can become an issue when you’re talking about large media files like videos). Copies of those files are also distributed in chunks to other Space Monkey devices, allowing for remote access and backup.
I first wrote about the company when it won the best new startup prize at the Launch conference in March. At the time, some readers pointed out that there are some open source solutions trying to do something similar. However, there’s a big difference between an interesting open source project and a consumer-grade service and company. Product Guy Clint Gordon-Carroll (yes, that’s his real title) says that the real challenge is creating something that’s actually compelling to a large audience. For example, he notes that by introducing the Space Monkey device, users no longer need to keep their computers online at all times.
In the first week alone, Gordon-Carroll says Space Monkey saw 10,000 sign ups. The company is now planning to ship the first devices this fall.
At the conference, Space Monkey had already raised $750,000. That amount was rolled into the new seed round, which was led by by Google Ventures and Venture51. Here’s the full, incredibly long list of investors (or at least those who can be disclosed publicly):
Google Ventures is the financially motivated venture capital arm of Google Inc., founded in 2009. Google Ventures invests in startups in industries including consumer Internet, software, hardware, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and others. They aim to invest about $100 million a year, with deal sizes ranging from seed to late-stage investments of tens of millions of dollars, depending on the stage of the opportunity and the company’s need for capital. Google Ventures currently invests in the U.S. and has offices in...
Venture51 is an early stage venture capital firm managing seed stage funds, Venture51 Fund 1 and Venture51 Fund 2. The firm invests in high technology companies and is based on the premise for a new, modern venture capital firm that supports the most promising founders in high-growth markets. The firm brings their own entrepreneurial experience, relationships, and marketing/product expertise to the table. They look to back passionate, experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on creating highly scalable technologies and significant...
Space Monkey is taking the cloud out of the datacenter by providing an affordable, subscription-based data storage solution, creating a faster and more durable way to store data from any device. Space Monkey combines the benefits of local hardware storage and cloud storage by providing a device that stores one terabyte of online storage for $10 per month. Space Monkey provides central access and sharing from anywhere in the world, and from any device including iOS and Android mobile...
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