Space Monkey (company)
{{Short description|American cloud storage company}}
{{Infobox company
| name = Space Monkey
| logo =
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| industry = {{ubl|Cloud computing|Web hosting|Data storage device}}
| foundation = 2011
| founders = Clint Gordon-Carroll, Alen Peacock
| location_city = Midvale, Utah
| location_country = United States
| key_people = Clint Gordon-Carroll, Alen Peacock
| products = 1TB drive
| website = {{URL|http://spacemonkey.com/}}
}}
Space Monkey was a cloud storage company founded by Clint Gordon-Carroll and Alen Peacock in Utah in 2011.{{cite news |title=Smart Home Company Vivint Just Bought Cloud Storage Startup Space Monkey |author=Aaron Tillery |date=10 September 2014 |work=Forbes |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/aarontilley/2014/09/10/exclusive-vivint-buys-space-monkey/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}{{cite news |title=Dropbox rival Space Monkey puts 'cloud' in your house |author=Rafe Needleman |date=7 March 2012 |work=Cnet |url=http://www.cnet.com/news/dropbox-rival-space-monkey-puts-cloud-in-your-house/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}{{Cite news |title=Alen Peacock: Finding that Magical Name |author=Alen Peacock |date=22 July 2013 |work=The Wall Street Journal |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2013/07/22/alen-peacock-finding-that-magical-name/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}
Space Monkey was a cloud storage service that allowed a consumer to put one terabyte of data on a Space Monkey-provided hard drive located on the customer's premises. The data were then backed up on other devices across Space Monkey's user network via a distributed cloud. The service claimed to prevent data loss due to failing hardware while allowing consumers access to their files anywhere in the world via the cloud.{{cite news |title=Space Monkey: Dropbox meets BitTorrent for peer-to-peer cloud storage |author=Sam Byford |date=8 March 2012 |work=The Verge |url=https://www.theverge.com/2012/3/8/2853777/spacemonkey-peer-to-peer-cloud-storage-dropbox-bittorrent |accessdate=4 February 2015}}{{cite news |title=Space Monkey Founders Show Off Their P2P Storage System, Prepare for Kickstarter Campaign |author=Anthony Ha |date=30 April 2015 |work=TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2013/04/01/space-monkey-demo/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}
In September 2014, Vivint, a home automation company, acquired Space Monkey for an undisclosed amount.{{cite news |title=Vivint buys Space Monkey |date=15 September 2014 |work=Enterprise Business Newspaper }}
History
Space Monkey was founded by Clint Gordon-Carroll and Alen Peacock in 2011.{{cite news |title=Space Monkey leaps into data-storage market |author=Jon Swartz |date=20 April 2013 |work=USA Today |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/04/20/space-monkey-data-centers-cloud-computing/2046603/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}} Gordon-Carroll and Peacock met while both working at Mozy in 2007.{{cite news |title=Utah's Startup Scene Is Almost as Spectacular as ITs Fall Scenery |author=Arik Hesseldahl |work=AllThingsD |url=http://allthingsd.com/20131011/utahs-startup-scene-is-almost-as-spectacular-as-its-fall-scenery/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}{{cite news |title=Space Monkey takes on Dropbox with clever $10/month 1TB backup hardward |author=Sean Ludwig |work=Venture Beat |date=17 April 2013 |url=https://venturebeat.com/2013/04/17/space-monkey/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}
A presentation by Peacock won the company first place as "Best New Startup" at the TechCrunch's Launch Festival in March 2012.{{cite news |title=P2P Dropbox Competitor Space Monkey Wins Launch, Has Already Raised $750k |author=Anthony Ha |work=TechCrunch |date=8 March 2012 |url=https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/08/space-monkey-launch/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}}
Space Monkey raised $2.7 million of venture capital in a Series A round led by Google Ventures that same year.{{cite news |title=P2P Storage Startup Space Monkey Raises $2.25M Led by Google Ventures and Venture51 |author=Anthony Ha |date=11 July 2012 |work=TechCrunch |url=https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/11/space-monkey-seed-round/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}} The company went live in April 2013.{{cite news |title=What It's Like Raising $80,000 in a Day |author=Matthew Lynley |date=17 April 2013 |work=The Wall Street Journal |url=https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/04/17/what-its-like-raising-80000-in-a-day/ |accessdate=4 February 2015}} It raised $349,625–350% of its initial $100,000 goal–in a 2013 Kickstarter campaign.{{cite news |title=Kickstarter Tech Project of the Week: Space Monkey |author=Eric Griffith |date=26 April 2013 |work=PC Mag |url=https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2418148,00.asp |accessdate=4 February 2015}} At one time, Space Monkey was the world's largest peer-to-peer storage network.{{cite news |title=Clint Gordon-Carroll of Vivint Smart Home Named a Utah Business Forty Under 40 Honoree |date=8 February 2016 |work=BusinessWire |url=http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160208005437/en/Clint-Gordon-Carroll-Vivint-Smart-Home-Named-Utah |accessdate=8 February 2016}}
In September 2014, Vivint acquired Space Monkey for an undisclosed amount. Although its use of Space Monkey technology was cited by Vivint as late as 2016,
{{cite web |url=https://www.vivint.com/resources/article/the-innovation-behind-vivint-cloud-storage-solutions |title=The Innovation behind Vivint’s Cloud Storage |publisher=Vivint |date=26 February 2016 |accessdate=5 July 2024}} as of 2024 Space Monkey has no website nor apparent public presence at Vivint, but it's technology lives on in the Vivint Smart Drive product which houses video data from cameras in customers' homes and powers Vivint's Playback feature.{{cite web |url=https://support.vivint.com/article/Products-Vivint-Smart-Drive-V2 |title=Vivint Smart Drive |publisher=Vivint}}
In 2019, after the Space Monkey founders had moved on to other pursuits, individuals inside of Vivint who had been associated with Space Monkey were able to spin the technology out into a separate company that was majority owned by Vivint. CrowdStorage continued to pursue the vision of selling storage services to compete with traditional cloud storage providers, and found some early success with partners. Eventually, CrowdStorage was acquired by Storj.io, where the Space Monkey IP now resides as a core part of Storj's platform.{{cite web |url=https://www.storj.io/blog/taking-the-distributed-cloud-to-new-heights |title=Taking the Distributed Cloud to New Heights |publisher=Storj |date=30 October 2024 |accessdate=19 Dec 2024}}