The open-source file syncing and sharing software company ownCloud, which was forced to shut its operations in the US when most of its staff walked out to join a fork named Nextcloud, has obtained fresh funding and will continue to operate in Germany.
Nextcloud was announced on 2 June by Frank Karlitschek, one of the founders of ownCloud.
The new funding for ownCloud will be provided by Tobias Gerlinger, an entrepreneur from Frankfurt, who will be the new chief executive and managing director. He is the chief executive of German Property.
He will work alongside Holger Dyroff, one of the original founders, who will function as the chief operating officer.
{loadposition sam08}Veteran Linux developer Markus Rex, a former stalwart at SUSE Linux, who was also involved in ownCloud as a start-up, is retiring from active management but will serve on the board.
In a media release, Gerlinger (left, below) said: "Central data management with enterprise-wide secure access to files is now a must for organisations of all sizes and industries. ownCloud offers a superior solution here and one that is characterised by sheer stability and scalability.
"Hundreds of small, medium and large-scale enterprises like Deutsche Bahn (a German rail booking company) already place their trust in ownCloud. Funding also gives ownCloud the opportunity to offer its customers the best product and service in the future as well."
Dyroff said: "We are delighted to have Tobias Gerlinger on board as an experienced investor and entrepreneur. ownCloud will use the capital raised to continue to develop its leading solution for enterprise file sync and share.
"In pursuing this goal, we intend to mirror our customer's wishes and requirements as closely as we did in the past, and exploit the advantage provided by the extreme flexibility of the ownCloud solution."
The German technolopgy news website golem.de had a rether dim view of the new ownCloud funding, saying the "new leadership has no open source experience and is currently working for a real estate fund".
It also said German Property was "a joint stock company, which claims to be acting as the owner of more than 140 apartments, among other things in Berlin and a target yield of more than 5% per annum," adding that "this value was well above the current average".