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September 21, 2007
Private investors Put SFr6.5M Into Nivio's Virtual Desktop Ambition
The private investors, as opposed to VCs or business angels have put SFr 6.5M (about $5.5M) into Nivio, a startup founded by 24 year old Sachin Duggal. Nivio offers a virtual desktop service.
The investors, which are listed in Nivio's press release, are mainly investment banking and foreign exchange trading execs from places like Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.
Nivio's hosted Windows desktop service is in limited beta at the moment. The idea is that via any browser-based PC and a broadband connection users can access a couple of dozen applications running on Windows or Linux. You can also store, sync, and access your files on Nivio.
Once it goes commercial, it will cost $12.99 a month.
The virtual-desktop-for-consumer idea is bubbling in the tech world in different forms at the moment. We've yet to actually try any of the new services out (although we did register) so keep that in mind - but we're thinking of startups like Xcerion out of Sweden, and Ulteo in France, for another example. Ulteo is from former Mandriva exec and founder Gaël Duval. Updated: we wrote Duval's name incorrectly originally - thanks Ulteo blog ;-).
The service he is developing is dubbed the Ulteo Connected Desktop.
Ulteo, as we understand it, is using a more user-friendly version of Linux that Duvall developed with his open source coding crews and it will offer users several applications too. A beta launch is in the works there also.
Giving Duggal's effort some processing power and industry credibility on top of his track record, which we'll get to in a sec, is the fact that earlier this year, AMD signed a partnership with Nivio to supply some of the technology for its grid-computing platform. AMD is not an equity investor.
Duggal's professional experience includes working at Deutsche Bank, while getting a degree at Imperial College in the UK. His tech prowess is still generating the investment bank part of the business 'millions annually', according to his bio that we received from Nivio's PR company. He's also run a systems software company and a PC disti.
His background in investment banking systems probably explains why there are foreign exchange trading execs as investors.
The virtual desktop concept is not new as several trade publications have pointed out (one example from The Register is here) but Nivio is going for standard office applications and works in standard browsers.
We asked some of our smart readers about the idea, the feedback ranged from interest to surprise that this is being tried. Generally positive then, although no one we emailed has yet been able to get an account or see a demo.
One word of caution came from the founder of a password security startup - since it his startup's core business we figure his comments are informed. He said to expect something stronger than the unencrypted password over naked http being used for registration for the beta once it goes to commercial.
Nivio's data center is in Switzerland, and India is home to its R&D.
View Nivio
Posted on September 21, 2007 06:29 AM | Posted to News And Updates | Online services | Permalink
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