Filled with campaigns for projects of all scales, the Kickstarter occasionally turns heads with projects raising several millions and at times billions from backers who want to fund the efforts.
Lima, a French startup that makes a device which acts as a free Dropbox and a full-fledged storage device without any subscriptions has managed to raise $2.5 million from a single backer, French VC firm Partech Ventures, in the Kickstarter campaign this year.
“With the explosion of tablets and smartphones, our data is becoming more scattered and fragmented, making it harder than ever to consolidate and access what matters most,” said Lima cofounder and chief executive Severin Marcombes.
“Lima is one of the most ambitious products we’ve seen in the last decade,” said Philippe Collombel, General Partner of Partech Ventures. “The team has an innovative approach to the explosive issue of personal data and has the potential to rebuild a 20 year old file storage process. We believe Lima will solve the siloed data issue so prevalent around the globe.”
Promised for a price of $99 currently, Lima doesn’t create a synchronizing folder on the user’s device(s) as it stores all files directly and the files are available for anytime access with the user. The storage system on the actual device is used as a cache to speed up file retrieval as the files are primarily stored in Lima.
Notably, anyone can use it to their advantage as it is compatible with all operating systems and devices.
The company has managed to raise such a big fund even though it has evoked dissatisfaction among backers. Back in July 2013 when Lima first opened its Kickstarter campaign, it started with a target of $69,000 which was met in just 12 hours pushing it to the top 10 most-backed tech projects. However, the company did not keep its word of delivering the devices before April 2014.
While the company has now promised a July 2014 delivery, backers are still unsure as the company’s statement reads that the new funding will “expand our resources so we can accelerate not just our development but ensure we can deliver you the best possible product. Our goal is not just to ship you a product, but a product that is well tested and that you’ll love to use.”
