Box.net, whose goal is to become the file system for the web, has scooped up $6 million in B round funding led by U.S. Venture Partners, the company said Thursday.
The online application, launched in early 2005, lets users store, share and edit files online. The latest round, to be used for infrastructure and to hire more engineers and sales people, comes on top of a $1.5 million A round led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 2006 and an angel round from entrepreneur and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban in 2005.
Box.net competes against a variety of online storage companies like AOL's Xdrive and Microsoft's Skydrive service, still in beta testing. But the unseen gorilla in the room may be Google, whose Gdrive has been rumored for several years.
"We look at Google as a competitor," said Mamoon Hamid, an associate at U.S. Venture Partners and a new board member at Box.net. "We think Google will announce their Gdrive. They're making a big push into the enterprise."
Box.net counts 1.4 million users and relies on the product's collaboration and file-sharing tools to help push into the corporate world.
"We think of ourselves as the file system for the web," said Chief Executive and co-founder Aaron Levie. "The message spreads fairly naturally. The core part of our functionality is the ability to share files. We have a lot of organic growth. We also have a marketing department that leverages deals with other businesses."
In December, Box.net launched its OpenBox service that lets users work on files through third party online services like Zoho, Scribd, Zazzle and Twitter.
Mr. Hamid said Box.net's focus on making its service simple and useful makes it stand out from the crowd of online data storage companies.
"The reality is that these guys are super nimble," he said. "They've rapidly developed a product that has good adoption."
"Grassroots adoption" has helped the company expand into the corporate office, Mr. Hamid said. "The value proposition is so simple that on the business side, people just get it."