Fabrik, a company that offer online storage and easy sharing of big files, has just closed a $24.9 million deal and added Ross Levinsohn, former President of Fox Interactive Media, to the board.
Its financing came primarily from 3i, with a small chunk from ComVentures.
As noted before, Fabrik competes in an increasingly crowded market, though their website reveals an effort to create a youthful brand (compare their site, for example, to YouSendIt, Box.net, and Omnidrive). Fabrik is now going after the consumer market, even as players like YouSendIt are going the other way, targeting professionals. Other related players include SoonR, Avvenu (see coverage here), and still more are listed here in Terence Pua’s piece about why storage will never quite be free.
Levinsohn, you’ll recall, spearheaded News Corporation’s plunge into the online world, overseeing, among other things, the development of Fox.com and the acquisition of MySpace, and his joining the board is indicative of Fabrik’s intention to push past the small business market and target consumers.
Also, unlike these other companies, Fabrik has expanded into hardware. Last February, they dropped $43M to buy SimpleTech, a major provider of external storage devices, (hard-drives, USB flash drives, etc). Until then, it had partnered with Seagate (makers of Maxtor). With hardware, it has also added Western Digital to its competition. Fabrik’s intention is to be the self-described “Apple of storage,” offering a line of hardware and software products whose components work best when used together.
Fabrik’s CEO Mike Cordano tells us his company was profitable before the infusion, but that it will allow them to expand their international efforts and diversify their offerings. What types of offerings these would be remains a secret for now.
The company told us late last year it had already raised $12 million in financing, and close to 90 percent of that is still in the bank, much of it coming from ComVentures. It has now raised a significant $36.9 million.
Tags: co:Fabrik, deal, inv:3i, inv:ComVentures, people:Ross-Levinsohn11 Comments
-
carl wu said:
What value does mr. levinsohn bring to the table…did he get asked to leave news corp…didn’t he get the idea for my space from some low level admin whom mentioned it to him…and know he has his brother running the myspace division…does he even know how to code in html…or for the matter does anyone at news corp?
-
Tortured Luddite said:
Couple of interesting questions…
1. When you list the other players in the space, you don’t mention Mozy (DFJ), ElephantDrive (Intel Capital), and Carbonite (Menlo Ventures). Any special reason - these three seem to show up in all the other lists I see?
2. Any one have any idea how many subscribers Fabrik has?
3. Any thoughts on the pricing model - $.49/GB? The companies I listed above all offer unlimited storage at flat rates. Which is better? Why?
4. If Fabrik raised $12mm last year, then how did it buy SimpleTech for $43mm? I just don’t get it (of course, there’s a lot I don’t get).
-
Matt Marshall said:
Tortured Luddite,
As mentioned, Terence Pua mentions several other companies in his piece We pointed to his piece, so we’ll repeat it here
http://venturebeat.com/2007/02/12/why-online-backup-will-never-be-free/It includes Mozy, Carbonite and several others.
I’ll let Dan handle the rest -
Mike Rundle said:
So the company was profitable before the 2nd round of financing, had 90% of their original round money in the bank still, but decided they needed $25M more.
What? Are you kidding? There must really be a bubble.
-
Tortured Luddite said:
Thanks Matt - serves me right for being lazy and not following the links.
I’m still curious if you or anyone else has any insight into my last question (the only one I’m truly confused by): how does a copy raise $12 mm and then buy another company for $43 mm?
-
Dan Kaplan said:
Luddite, I’m on the case. I’ll keep you posted
-
Dan Kaplan said:
Fabrik: $.49/month/gig
Box.net: $7.95.month 5 gb per month
Mozy: $4.95/month unlimited
Elephant drive: $9.95/month unlimited
Carbonite: $4.16/month unlimitedIt goes on…
-
Dan Kaplan said:
Unfortunately, Fabrik did not respond to our questions. Sorry, Luddite.
-
Dan Kaplan said:
Further information, via VentureWire:
Fabrik’s post-money valuation was just under $150M, with revenues over $150M. So traction’s pretty good.
-
Tortured Luddite said:
Dan - Thanks for the extra digging. It is really nice to see a blogger respond to a comment with that kind of genuine concern and effort. Even though the mystery of the acquisition remains, that was a lot of other really interesting information… ($150 mm in revenues - wow - way higher than I would have guessed, and very impressive).
Keep up the good work - back to my luddite ways…
-
Sarin said:
Hi,i would like to add to your list a new back up on line product i recently tried: MEMOPAL.
It is still in beta version but it is fast and simple, full system recovery, automatic back up, search on line files and, and own http://ftp.
It starts well….
3 Trackbacks
10:37 pm
Fabrik Raises $24.9M in Funding, Adds Ross Levinsohn to Board said:
[...] [via] Link to This Post: [...]
10:43 pm
proxieslist.net said:
[...] [via] [...]
10:08 am
VentureBeat » DivShare adds document viewer, takes on Scribd said:
[...] one of the best in the ever expanding mass of mostly undifferentiated file hosting and sharing services, has just added a flash-based document [...]