Who needs the cloud? Peer-to-peer file sharing startup Infinit raises $1.8M

Sure, you can throw a file up to a public cloud and let people download it whenever they want. But companies increasingly seem to think that when sharing files, a cloud isn’t necessary.

Investors have thrown $1.8 million behind Infinit, a startup sitting firmly in this camp.

In disclosing the funding in a statement today, Infinit also announced the release of the first full-featured version of its software, which is available for Mac and Windows.

The funding affirms the logic behind leaving out clouds, which stands out from popular file-sharing tools like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Box.

Unlike those services, Infinit invokes a peer-to-peer model to share files, whether recipients use Infinit or not. It never touches a cloud, whether people share files privately or create links for public use. “No servers. No NSA,” the startup boasts.

And because this doesn’t need a cloud, Infinit doesn’t have to charge users to maintain a cloud infrastructure.

“Particularly interesting is Infinit’s peer-to-peer technology that implies that there will always be a free version of the product,” cofounder and chief executive Julien Quintard wrote in an email to VentureBeat.

Infinit generates short links through which people can download files. It supports streaming even in the middle of downloads, and file transfers continue even when users lose their Internet connections, according to the startup’s website.

Paris-based Infinit started in 2012. To date, the eight-person startup has raised $2.3 million. The new funding comes from Alven Capital and 360 Capital Partners.

Quintard had 16,000 users before today, mostly on Mac, he wrote in an email. The startup has no immediate plans to implement pricing, although Quintard mentioned one idea: implementing business-friendly features like Active Directory integration or a console for administrators.

Competition could come from cloud-based file-sharing tools as well as peer-to-peer alternatives like BitTorrent Sync and Droplr.