i-drive was a

file hosting service A file-hosting service, cloud-storage service, online file-storage provider, or cyberlocker is an internet hosting service specifically designed to host user files. It allows users to upload files that could be accessed over the internet afte ...

that operated from 1998 to 2002. The name derived from the words "Internet drive".

History

Based in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, the company was founded in 1998 with seed investors and launched its first product, an online file storage service in August 1999. The idea originated from an early company Jeff Bonforte co-founded in 1996 called ShellServer.net, which provided 10 MB of space for IRC users. Bonforte compiled the founding team, which included Chris Lindland, Patrick Fenton, Tim Craycroft, Rich MacAlmon, John Reddig and Lou Perrelli (the last three were also the company's first angel investors). Originally presented as i-drive.com, the company acquired the domain idrive.com around October 1999. The initial product offered a limited amount of free file storage space, and later enhanced the offering with '

sideloading Sideloading describes the process of transferring files between two local devices, in particular between a personal computer and a mobile device such as a mobile phone, smartphone, PDA, tablet, portable media player or e-reader. Sideloading typ ...

' – storing files such as

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

files collected on the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

without the need for the user to download them to their individual computer. In January 2000, the company began offering unlimited storage space and an application called Filo. In 2001 the company transitioned from offering the free storage service and transformed the underlying software architecture into a middleware storage mechanism and product, seeking to sell into various markets including the 3G marketplace, targeting companies such as DoCoMo and Earthlink. In January 2002 the company name was changed to Anuvio Technologies. i-drive's assets were acquired by the

EMC Corporation Dell EMC (EMC Corporation until 2016) is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and Round Rock, Texas, United States. Dell EMC sells data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, clo ...

in 2002. Certain assets (including the idrive.com domain name) were acquired by Pro Softnet Corp which also offered online storage services. At its height, i-drive hosted over 10 million registered users, employed 110 people, and held partnerships with MP3.com, ZDnet.com, and 40 major universities. The service was rated as a "Top 5 Web Application" by

CNET ''CNET'' (short for "Computer Network") is an American media website that publishes reviews, news, articles, blogs, podcasts, and videos on technology and consumer electronics globally. ''CNET'' originally produced content for radio and televi ...

in 2000 and one of the "3 Top Technologies to Watch" by

Fortune Magazine ''Fortune'' is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The ...

in 2000. The company raised over US$30 million from

venture capitalist Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...

s such as

Draper Fisher Jurvetson Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) is an American venture capital firm focused on investments in enterprise, consumer and disruptive technologies. In January 2019, DFJ Venture, the early-stage team, spun out and formed Threshold Ventures. DFJ Growth ...

, Information Technology Ventures, Global Retail Partners, Hikari (Japan),

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...

(Netherlands), EMC, and

Partners Group Partners Group Holding AG is a Swiss-based global private equity firm with US$127 billion in assets under management in private equity, private infrastructure, private real estate and private debt. The firm manages a broad range of funds, struct ...

(Switzerland).

References

MP3.com and I-Drive.com Join Forces to Store and Manage MP3 Files
Online backup services File hosting Data synchronization File sharing services Cloud storage {{Web-software-stub