French startup Lima has raised $2.5 million for a device that stores content from mobile devices.
The tiny device currently costs $99, according to TechCrunch. All of the funding came from French VC firm Partech Ventures.
"With the Kickstarter campaign, we are now producing 17,000 devices instead of 1,000 as we initially expected," Severin Marcombes, CEO and co-founder of Lima, said in a phone interview. "There was so much enthusiasm that we thought we would deliver a polished product like the ones you can find at Best Buy instead of a half-baked Kickstarter gadget. We need to raise the bar to deliver a spotless product."
The Lima can be plugged into any Mac OS, iOS, Linux, Windows, or Android device to store files, VentureBeat reported. Unlike Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, and other cloud storage systems, the device holds all content in one place. This makes it so users don't have to switch between different storage system devices.
Lima was founded by Macrombes and Gawen Arab, and raised $1.2 million in its Kickstarter campaign last year.
"There's a huge shift from having one computer to having multiple connected devices," said Roman Lavault of Partech Ventures. "Lima gives consumers control through a transparent and ubiquitous platform that effortlessly consolidates all their digital belongings across devices."
Lima received support from 13,000 backers and reached its Kickstarter funding goal in less than 12 hours. The device became Kickstarter's 13th most funded technology project, VentureBeat reported.
The funding will be used to increase engineering, sales, marketing and distribution as well as help the company figure out a way to get into markets in North America, Europe and Asia.
Lima also recently started pre-orders for the device again, TechCrunch reported.
"We are currently manufacturing the first batch of devices for Kickstarter backers, and we have a few more devices than what we need," Marcombes said.
The units are expected to be delivered to backers in July.
