Hive.im, the cloud storage service with a social twist, nabs $500k in funding

Hive.im, the Hong Kong-based cloud storage service, revealed today it has secured US$500,000 in seed funding. The round was led by Bigcolors, with contributions from hosting provider Link11 and unnamed angel investors.

The money will be used towards bolstering infrastructure and supporting its mobile apps, which he says will be released in late December or early January. Lehartel described the closing of the round as an important milestone for the company given its location.

“We are a Hong Kong-based company. Getting funding is very different from getting funding in the US.” he says. “When you raise a seed round in Silicon Valley, you might be at a different stage in the development of the product. I tend to think that seed rounds in APAC tend to require more advanced products. We’re beyond the beta product and are already scaling.”

Tech in Asia covered Hive in detail two months ago. The company takes the cloud storage concept from the likes of Dropbox and plops in the framework of a social network. Users can upload files – likely movies, music, and photos – and share them with friends they’re connected to.

See: Hive hopes to turn cloud storage into something fun, social, and free

Since that piece was published, Lehartel says the company has been busy translating the site into different languages. While registrations and active user counts remain locked up, Lehartel says that traction has been particularly robust in Japan and in Spanish-speaking countries. He expects an uptake in North America following the release of Hive’s mobile app in late December or early January.

“If you look at who we’re competing with – Dropbox and others – cloud storage needs to be multi-platform. In order to really grow in North America, we need to fill that gap. Once we do that, we’ll see a very different adoption pattern.”

Despite how Hive remains in its infancy, the startup is worth following for two reasons. First, depending on where you sit, the value proposition is either brilliant, or too little too late. By adding a social spin to cloud storage, there’s an attractive “check out my stuff” spirit that recalls the likes of Tumblr or Path. But since it’s so media centric, it’s possible that companies like Netflix or Spotify are better placed to win users.

In addition, if Hive indeed picks up traction, it might raise eyebrows among copyright owners. When asked about how Hive might facilitate piracy or copyright violations, Lehartel pointed out that Hive doesn’t index any of its pages, and content shareable only when two people connect. While my upload of The Avengers might be accessible to my 50 or 100 friends on Hive, it will never reach the heights of mass distribution sites like Megaupload or The Pirate Bay.

“Sure, we’re sharing content, but it’s in a fully controlled manner,” says Lehartel. “For us, our core business is about the fascinating exchange of information. “It’s not a question about pirated or illegal content, it’s about personal content. If that personal content [contains] pirated content, it’s up to the industry – not a single company – to address that in a way that makes sense,” he adds.