Home » Features

Google investing in Egnyte to a total of $16 million

Online file storage is seen by many businesses large and small as a money-saving tool that they cannot do without, and one provider of so-called ‘cloud storage’ has been given a ringing endorsement by a technology giant. Egnyte, an online file storage company with offices in Silicon Valley, have received a boost from Google Ventures. The investment arm of the search engine is to invest US$16 million in the company to help boost brand recognition.

Google Ventures gave the company Series C funding to help position itself as one of the leading providers of online hybrid cloud storage, which could total $32 million when taking into account funding from other sources such as Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and Polaris. The company expect that this funding will make it easier than ever for them to push the benefits of using cloud storage for businesses of all sizes. In exchange for the funding, Google Ventures’ Karim Faris will sit on their board.

The funding is expected to help Egynte compete with its more famous rivals, most notably Box, another provider of cloud storage. As it stands, Box have more customers and a larger marketing budget, but the gap in marketing spend will be closed considerably with the money from Google, although whether it will work in Egnyte’s favour is uncertain. However, the extra resources at their disposal, if spent wisely, could make a huge difference for the company.

Egnyte’s CEO Vineet Jain believes that, by receiving this extra money, they could compete with other services as well as Box more effectively. Cloud services such as Apple iCloud and Google Drive, not to mention Dropbox will provide them with serious competition, but they are a growing company, and an increased profile with the help of Google Ventures could help them stand out from the crowd of cloud storage services.