US-based personal storage service provider Upthere emerged from beta yesterday with $77m of funding co-led by data storage equipment producer Western Digital and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Other investors in the round included GV, the corporate venturing unit formerly known as Google Ventures, mobile network NTT Docomo, which invested through its NTT Docomo Ventures subsidiary, Elevation Partners, Floodgate and Square 1 Bank.
Upthere offers a cloud storage service for photos, videos, music and documents that automatically categorises them so that individual files can be found and shared more easily.
The system is powered by an operating system called UpOS which integrates cloud and device-based technology to support expanding content from both sources. Upthere’s basic offering costs $4.99 per month for 200GB of storage.
Chris Bourdon, Upthere’s chief executive, said: “We built Upthere from the ground up to be the ultimate personal storage experience.
“We can now live directly from the cloud instead of battling the limited space on our devices. With the cloud as our primary storage place, we can easily view, find and share a lifetime of data from any device, anywhere.”