Dropbox rival may offer more security

Security concerns surrounding online

file-sharing

leaders

Dropbox

and

Box

may see their consumer-level customers flock to a new peer-to-peer rival that circumvents the cloud and its data issues.

Send Anywhere, a Korean-based file-sharing company backed by Rakuten Ventures, which recently purchased Viber in a deal worth more than €650 million, has just closed a $1 million (€729,000) seed funding round.

"There is an avoidance of cloud services" from some consumers at present, admitted Detlef Schmuck, chief operating officer with German file-sharing company, TeamDrive. Mr Schmuck added that the "very consumer-focused product" from Send Anywhere takes advantage of this concern.

Send Anywhere enables users to share content between devices in real time without the need to first save them to cloud storage. By utilising a temporary key confirmation devices can share data without the need for login or website registration.

It is freely available online and Android and iOS users can also download the Send Anywhere app. Dropbox and Box’s security levels were called into question earlier this month when it was found that a security flaw allowed for private data – including tax returns and mortgage applications – to be read by third parties.

However, Darya Rusanova, sales and marketing manager at UK-based cloud file-sharing company Brainloop, said that, while Send Anywhere would find a "niche" consumer audience, she's unsure as to the strength of its business model in the long term.

“I don’t even know how [Send Anywhere] is going to make a business model out of this,” said Ms Rusanova.