San Francisco based Syncplicity, a startup who entered the crowded market of online storage and file synchronization service providers last April, has raised $2.35 million in Series A funding from True Ventures and other private investors, including technology industry veteran Frank Marshall. The announcement comes almost 10 months after the company raised $250,000 in seed funding from relatives, friends and some angel investors.
Like a plethora of similar services, you can use Syncplicity to store, share, backup and synchronize files from your computer to the cloud. But don’t put it into the same basket with services like Box.net and Dropbox just yet, warns CEO Leonard Chung. He refers to Syncplicity as an ‘online data management’ service provider and stresses that the service is capable of handling ‘active data’, by which he means files that constantly change or are being worked on by multiple people.
While there is some truth to Chung’s statements about being different from other solutions geared primarily towards consumers, I wonder if that is going to prove sufficient to convince businesses to adopt Syncplicity.
What does differentiate Syncplicity is the fact that the company’s open platform integrates well with web applications. The platform enables developers to extend their web applications directly to the desktop, creating seamless interaction between online applications and files stored locally on the desktop. Examples: you can sync your photo library between Facebook and Syncplicity, edit your images with Picnik straight from your file folders, and associate any text document directly with Google Docs, Scribd and Zoho.
For now, Syncplicity’s desktop client only works with Windows XP and Vista, but Chung promises a Mac-compatible version will be released in private beta before the end of this year. Syncplicity will remain in beta for now and offers a free account for anyone signing up, including 2GB of storage space and 2 computers to sync. Also, for every friend you invite you get an extra 100MB in storage in your account up to an additional 3GB.
The company also offers a paid subscription that runs $9.99/month or $99.99 for a year, which includes 40GB space and unlimited computers.
Wuala offers a similar service based on a peer-to-peer file storage and sharing system, and there is also some comparison with Dell’s Remote Access, HP’s Upline, Nomadesk and SugarSync.
Syncplicity is datasharing and storage system provider.But if CEO is saying don’t share files etc then how we can trust on this system?
http://www.iboozi.com
No Mac or Linux support = meh.
Other than that the service looks awesome. Especially like the version control. Still… I can use that great future because I only have a Mac and Linux box. :-/
Eh. Ive tried both Syncplicity and Dropbox and I have to say Dropbox has Syncplicity (even the name’s a mouthful) beat by a mile. The kicker? Dropbox supports both Mac and Linux.
http://www.getdropbox.com
what parakey could have been…
Syncplicity is awesome. As a PC user i have files synced across 3 different computers. Syncplicity keeps my desktops identical by uploaded all of the files to a cloud and making sure every time i drop a file to my desktop it is then downloaded to my other 2 computers. I also use syncplicity as a back up system and have 200+ GB of files backed up between 2 of the computers. 160+ GB of this is my photo database. I can upload and work on photos on one computer and then go to the other and everything is there. Also the iphone/mobile version of syncplicity allows me to have all the files i want with me wherever i go. I can drop a photo, pdf or doc to my desktop, and within moments walk into another room or meeting and view it on my iphone. While i will have to pay a pretty penny to continue to sync the 200+GB after beta, the service works flawlessly and is definitely worth investment.
Some vc should hand over some 200.000 $ to the fruux guys (cool “addon” to box.net / dropbox, when looking for a mobileme replacement, at least for the essential stuff idisk and sync). I started using their service since their TUAW coverage and it works really great so far. With some cash they would probably kick even more ass
I have no idea why anyone would use this or dropbox over Live Mesh: http://mesh.live.com
Came here to post this. I swear by live mesh.
I still like FolderShare for it simplicity – no uploading of files to servers, just clean P2P syncing. Only downside is the 10,000 file limit within folders (last I checked).
This does look cool if it could finally sync my iGoogle calendar with my iPhone calendar (similar to NemusSync).
It’s great to see funding continue, even in a space this competitive. Any word on valuation?
They have a very slick interface and syncing is a very useful functionality but we won’t know how to evaluate this until they are cross-platform and have removed the storage limits. As those who have kept an eye on the space have learned, it is not as simple to scale to the massive storage, traffic, and transaction levels that demand for storage services can support.
In any event, at ElephantDrive we think that news and investment in the storage space is good for everyone. Congrats to Syncplcicity – if you have needs that exceed their 40 GB limit, please check out http://www.elephantdrive.com.
No cross platform support. If you have competition in your space, be sure to level the playing field first on fundamentals, and cross platform is one of those.
Early adopters use multiple platforms and those are the ones likely to use your service.
I can’t help but see the Brightcove branding in Syncplicity. I immediately thought this was a Brightcove article on TC when I first glanced at the page. I guess they should be flattered.
Good luck to the team…level the playing field and out execute the competition and market like crazy.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. No worries about scaling — we’ve been offering unlimited storage since day one of our beta to really make sure we could scale.
Mac client is coming soon. We now store over 50TB user data across many millions of files with lots more synced each day. When we do exit beta, there’ll be no hard limit on the size of our paid plans for those who need lots of space.
Unlimited? Even ISPs are smart enough not to offer unlimited bandwidth. Good luck on that.
Do users still see need for more storage, sync solutions? Are their any user needs that are not met by dropbox, box.net, live mesh, Syncplicity or 100 other solutions?
Congrats to Isaac and the rest of the Syncplicity team! There are some very talented people working in that company that I’ve crossed paths with in the past and they have a great service. I highly recommend it.
No Linux support. There are others who have Linux support.
Congrats Isaac and Leonard. I knew you guys are on to something huge here.
These are very talented guys who have created a great product. I recommend that you try out Syncplicity. I was a part of the closed beta and loved it.
is it different from google docs?
Leonard and his team have been awesome in accepting recommendations in the forums. Not to mention they aren’t just a syncing service but a backup solution as well, unlike Folder Share.
Either way I’ve been using Syncplicity as my primary for some time (I’ve tested Live Mesh, Folder Share, Mozy, Dropbox, and others.) Syncplicity does offer an amazing interface, various integrations to other online services, a decent and fair free package, and a simple and sweet interface.
Congrats Leonard on the funding. Look forward to seeing where this money takes your service to the next level.
I tried getdropbox, livemesh, and sugarsync. getdropbox works flawlessly, but it is very limited. Does not offer multiple folder syncing. Livemesh was another great product, but not 100% stable. Sugarsync used to be my primary choice. I used it on over 20 different servers in 12 different physical locations. It had its quirks but was my no. 1 choice. The only reason I chose syncplicity, was that it was the first product to let me share folders with other users (I am aware that sugarsync does too). Most importantly, it let me give read AND write rights. All my comments are based upon my experiences during the time I was using the products. They may now support the read AND write capabilities I so desired. My only major gripe with syncplicity is that it is not supported on other OSes such as Windows 2K. This has forced me to go through another sync product, humyo, to solve that problem. Humyho lets me sync mapped drives. Help me out and get a solution for W2K, please, syncplicity team. Congrats and I look forward to your continued success. Please make your product open to third parties. This will definitely help you grow. Please, make your api available to all developers.
Jim – shoot me an e-mail at leonard at syncplicity dot com. I’d be interested in learning more about how you’re using us.
We also have an API open to developers. Ping me for details.
Leonard
I like Syncplicity very much!