OwnCloud Raises $6.3M to Combine File Sharing and Privacy

Grazed from WSJ. Author: Deborah Gage.

Secure storage and sharing of data have become sensitive topics since former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year leaked details of U.S. government snooping. But ownCloud Inc. co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Frank Karlitschek saw the danger before that.

Convinced in 2010 that new cloud computing services were a threat to security and privacy, he wrote what ultimately became ownCloud’s code, putting it into open source and gathering a community of developers around it. In 2011, ownCloud the company was formed, and it has now raised $6.3 million in Series A funding co-led by Devonshire Investors and current investor General Catalyst Partners, taking total funding to $10.1 million. Valuation is not disclosed…

Unlike competitors including Box Inc., Dropbox and Egnyte Inc., which as a group have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital, ownCloud gives corporate IT departments control over company data by letting them control where it’s stored, according to co-founder and Chief Executive Markus Rex…

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