Venture Capital Firms

VC Firms, Polaris Venture Partners and Maples Investments Invest $6 Million in Egnyte

Based in Mountain View, California, the startup on demand file server, Egnyte announced today that it had raised $6 million in a new round of funding with Polaris Venture Partners jumping on board and existing investor, Maples Investments also participating in this round of funding.

Egnyte is a company that provides an on demand file server for small and medium sized businesses, where they cannot only store their files online, but also collaborate on those files online as well. Even though there are many online file storage services out there, providing stiff competition to Egnyte is difficult. Egnyte has the upper hand over the competition because of its focus on replacing the traditional server for small companies with a server that gives these small companies the full advantage of the internet. Besides allowing small businesses to simply store their files online, Egnyte also allows its clients to save multiple versions of their files, so there are several back up files available and providing businesses that extra security for their important data. Another one of Egnyte’s features allows business administrators to control who can read these files as well as write and delete a particular file from the Egnyte server. Furthermore, Egnyte also allows businesses a way to send links to embedded large files.

For all of its services, Egnyte does charge a monthly $10 fee to all of its users, providing a much lower cost, which is important for small businesses.

Despite the difficult economic times of these days, Egnyte has reported that over the past six months, the company has reported its revenue to be growing over 15%. This also shows that there is a growing niche in the cloud industry and a growing interest in small and medium businesses to use cloud computing to access their applications and files online and be able to have their workers and managers collaborate on those files in a safe online environment. Egnyte’s current high, however, could be threatened by the bigger companies with Google launching its Google Apps and Microsoft working on its web-based version of its Microsoft Office 2010. The main threat that this could pose to Egnyte is the core of its business platform, with the potential of Egnyte to lose a good portion of its clientele. This threat could be that serious because if there is such an office suite, as the ones Google and Microsoft are developing could render Egnyte’s service obsolete by providing a user all of the benefits of cloud computing and yet being able to use all the office applications available, such as word processors, spread sheets, and presentation software and being able to save their files directly to a safe and secure server online.

Polaris Venture Partners is a vc firm that mainly invests in seed, early and mid stage companies in the IT and life sciences industries. Polaris Venture Partners is an active investor and usually co-invests together with other vc firms and takes an active role in the companies it invests in. Some other companies in Polaris’s portfolio include Emo Labs, Living Proof, BlackArrow, Experience, Thing Labs, Art.com, Ice.com, and others.

Maples Investments is a vc firm run by Mike Maples, Jr. and was recently awarded the Rising VC Star Award from Fortune Magazine. Mr. Maples is currently a full time investor. However, before becoming an investor, he was an entrepreneur and a CEO who held senior positions in several high growth companies. Mr. Maples has experience in several industries and their related markets, which include consumer technology, small business, and the enterprise. Some other companies in Maples Investments’ portfolio include 750 Industries, Aggrogate Knowledge, Bazaarvoice, B-Side Entertainment, Business Connect China, Circle of Moms, Digg.com, and others.

For more information about Egnyte, click here.

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