Almi invests in CloudMe

More and more people are connected to different cloud services and use them for collaboration, storage, backup and streaming music and video. So far, the market for these "clouds" dominated by US companies like Dropbox.

But now stepping technology company CloudMe on the scene as a worthy European contenders. Almi Invest has invested in the company.

CloudMe has developed a cloud service (software as a service SaaS), which in some respects resemble the solutions DropBox, SugarSync or Box already by making the information available between computers and mobile devices. But CloudMe distinguishes itself from the competition in several ways.

CloudMe provides a cloud-based file system as opposed to, for example, DropBox makes it possible to synchronize the folders anywhere on your computer to any folder in the cloud. It is also possible to mount CloudMe as a network drive (WebDAV) and access files without having to get a copy of the computer, which is crucial when the amount of cloud storage will increase to terabytes of data and will not fit on as notebook PCs.

CloudMe draws a big advantage of owning their own servers and run their own cloud platform.

This means that you can ensure that all data is stored in Sweden and that profitability will be significantly better than to outsource any storage to Amazon. Differentiation is also more difficult for competitors when the majority of them based on the same solution in the form of Amazon, which both affect the price level and technical functionality.
strong privacy protection

In addition to technical differences, there are other, perhaps far more important things that separates the Swedish challenger from their American competitors, namely the protection of privacy. It is a factor that weighs heavily on many millions of end users:

- Our company's activities are regulated under European law. There is an important distinction because our US competitors governed by The Patriot Act, which means that US authorities are entitled to access the content in the cloud without a court order or requirement to notify the holder, said Daniel Arthursson, CEO of CloudMe.

Among the major international IT giants such is Swedish CloudMe already a well known brand. The company has developed apps for all major operating systems and not least with Samsung and Western Digital who responded by making CloudMe available in their smart TVs. Today CloudMe over 1 million users in 229 countries and well known partners such as TeliaSonera, Elisa, Western Digital, Samsung, and WinZip, which distributes, sells or build apps that use CloudMe.
Demanded European supplier

The recent revelations that the US mass monitors data that users store in the US cloud services, is something that really played CloudMe in the hands and not made it easier for the American competitors. New partners have come to CloudMe by demands from large customers that offer support in its services and software for a secure European options and Swedish CloudMe was the natural partner.

WinZip with its 100 million users is a typical example of such a partner, but also major players in the banking and insurance industry has sought out CloudMe for cooperation when they are concerned about their customers' data. The European companies starting to pick up cloud solutions to Europe is an interesting development and one that can really speed up the domestic market.

The European market is already significantly larger than the US, 408 million European Internet users against 208 million in the US, yet US services completely dominant among European users. Now there is a chance for European services to win market share, but competition for cloud customers will still be tough to come:

- I believe in this company. They have a service that is at the forefront and solves the problems that the American competitors to contend with, and is one of the few services that can seriously compete with them. CloudMe is well positioned to grow further with Europe as its home market, but with the world as a limitation, said Bjorn Persson, Investment Manager at Almi Invest.

For further information please contact:
Daniel Arthursson, CEO of CloudMe tel + 46-70-916 32 64 pr@cloudme.com
Bjorn Persson, Investment Manager, Almi Invest +46 70-207 41 25 bjorn.persson@almi.se
Maria Kessling, Almi Invest Communications, tel +46 76-880 88 10 maria.kessling@almi.se

Original story