ZumoDrive Raised $1.5 million in VC Funding

ZumoDrive, a Burlingame, Calif.-based developer of technology that connects consumers to their content on any mobile device, has raised $1.5 million in new VC funding. Sherpalo Ventures LLC led the round, and was joined by return backers Tandem Entrepreneurs and VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron.

ZumoDrive, which recently launched a new version, will use the funding invest in product development. The technology start-up will also focus on building channel relationships to more widely distribute ZumoDrive.

New investor Sherpalo Ventures led the funding round and was joined by previous investors Tandem Entrepreneurs and VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron. Bergeron is the largest limited partner of Tandem Entrepreneurs who made an initial investment in the Company in 2007.

"ZumoDrive has a rapidly growing user base that is already generating strong revenue, so this funding is simply a boost that will drive additional improvements in the product to make this the best solution for users” said Shriram, founder of Sherpalo Ventures LLC. "As consumers continue to purchase additional mobile and portable devices, ZumoDrive is poised to be a key player in helping them access content seamlessly from any device.”

The funding round follows the launch of ZumoDrive 1.0, which enables users to access their music playlists, photo albums and document folders on any device. ZumoDrive mimics a standard hard drive but saves content in the cloud and then streams it to each device instead of saving local copies, making it the killer app for the netbook and other devices with limited storage.

The new version of ZumoDrive wirelessly syncs playlists between devices, auto-detects content, and lets users link file folders on their device to ZumoDrive only once so that changes in that folder will always be linked to ZumoDrive. It also integrates with media applications especially well so users can play entire music libraries saved in ZumoDrive on multiple devices without manually syncing content. Additionally, ZumoDrive released a new version of their iPhone app which supersizes the device, allowing users to enjoy all their content on their iPhone without worrying about exceeding local storage capacity.

"This additional funding positions us to continue to accelerate the rapid growth we have experienced this year,” said David Zhao, founder and CEO of Zumodrive. "We’re looking forward to working closely with our investors in a really exciting and prosperous 2010.”

This funding follows previous rounds raised from Douglas Bergeron, Tandem and seed-stage start-up funding firm Y Combinator. Zecter was the founding company and Y Combinator participant that became ZumoDrive.