Predominantly, an early stage startup is bound to confront many challenges like funding, product decisions, the direction of the company and much more. In case of Eindhoven-based file-sharing platform Skotty, it’s altogether a peculiar and unexpected one.
A few days back, the Dutch tech hotshot WeTransfer had summoned RTL Nieuws to take an article offline. In the piece, a journalist who goes by a name Daniël Verlaan wrote about Skotty, “a Dutch alternative file sharing service as a safe, privacy-friendly, WeTransfer-like service.” Having said that, a few hours later, Verlaan received apologies about the state of affairs by phone. Consequently, some Twitter users claimed to use Skotty.io after observing the series of events.
For the uninitiated, Skotty is an online file sharing platform with end-to-end encryption placing emphasis on security and privacy. Founded by Mees Boeijen and Oscar van der Vleuten, the company aims to serve both consumers and businesses to communicate securely without worrying about data leaks and privacy breaches.
Regarding WeTransfer fiasco!
When contacted, Mees Boeijen, Founder, Skotty.io, exclusively told Silicon Canals, “Well, we were quite surprised when we noticed a company (WeTransfer) of that caliber was coming after journalists for us, as we are only a few weeks old.”
According to Boeijen, Skotty.io has witnessed a 900 per cent increase in user rate in a weeks time, right after the brawl. He also noted, that “their services primarily focus on completely different aspects from WeTransfer.”
Share and communicate files securely
Since, Skotty pays attention to privacy, the startup makes sure it knows as little as possible about the users, providing end-to-end encryption in a very minimalistic way. Talking about the service, Mees Boeijen said, “The platform is designed in such a way that it allows the user to send a file and communicate securely to any email address.” Notably, the user who sends file does have to create an account, while the recipients don’t need to.
Mobile version in the pipeline!
The Eindhoven-based file sharing service is currently developing a feature that enables the user to have control over the information. Boeijen went on explaining, “If a user sends a message through Skotty, they can get a very clear timeline to see what has happened to this message – has it been opened, has the file been downloaded and much more.”
Furthermore, Boeijen informed, the startup is planning to launch the mobile version of Skotty next year as well.
Boeijen, “Everyone should possess the tools to defend themselves in this world of digital warfare. Therefore, we develop these simple tools in the form of Skotty.io.”
Roadmap of Skotty.io!
Skotty is currently available as a public beta. However, Boeijen and his team are working on a stable release of Skotty which is expected to go live in January or February 2019. Furthermore, the software will be tested by an independent party before the launch. According to Boeijen, there are plans to expand the online platform to other parts of Europe and the United States as well.
Plans to raise €325K
The company is planning to raise €325,000 ultimately and have already raised a part of it. To be more specific, Skotty has already had two small capital injections from Sparkplug Ventures and former director of an ICT company. The new funding round for internationalisation will be a Series A. Moreover, Boeijen expects Skotty to become profitable by the beginning of 2020. He added, “This will bring us a level of sustainability for the organisation and afterwards, we will start off a new funding round which indeed will give us that extra boost when we go international.”
Birth of Skotty.io!
Mees Boeijen and Oscar van der Vleuten developed a simple platform during their training at Saint Lucas that allowed students to send each other files.
Boeijen noted, “After studies, we kind of lost sight of each other and went in separate ways. Oscar went to Amsterdam and did Communication Design and I did my software studies. I dropped out after a year and started working at a marketing agency as a software engineer. After a brief gap, I got in touch with Oscar and started talking about doing some cool stuff. At that time he decided to drop out, and I decided to quit my job to just go into this full-time. I think right now we are absolutely on a clear mission with an excellent product and a superior team.”
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