Western Digital acquires Upthere
Upthere is a Redwood City, California-based company that was founded by former employees of Oracle, Apple, and MongoDB. Last year, its cloud storage solution finally completed its beta testing stage and the company received US$77 million in funding from various investors, including Western Digital and KPCB.
Earlier this week, Western Digital completed the asset acquisition of Upthere. The company's cloud storage solution mentioned above is platform-independent and works on iPhone, iPad, Android and macOS devices, as well as on Windows PCs and handsets. Its features make it a direct competitor to big names like Dropbox or Microsoft's OneDrive.
According to the official press release, "The addition of Upthere's technology and team to Western Digital's Client Solutions business unit will enhance the company's consumer products portfolio with new cloud-based offerings." While the financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, it has been revealed that Upthere's CEO Chris Bourdon is now a strategic leader of Western Digital's Client Solutions team.
Western Digital currently delivers its drives together with various local and network backup solutions, including Acronis True Image WD Edition, WD Access, WD Drive Utilities, or WD Arkeia Network Backup. Most of these tools run at least on Windows and macOS. Thanks to Upthere's contribution, we expect them to introduce a platform agnostic solution in the near future that can provide a rich set of local features and cloud capabilities.
