Box.net Receives $81 Million More in Cloud Storage Funding

boxdotnet

The official blog entry by Box co-founder and CEO Aaron Levie doesn’t spend much time on the funding announcement proper before turning into a manifesto on cloud momentum and providing IT value in an economic downturn. It’s well worth a read for cloud industry watchers. But here’s the part that stuck out to me about Box’s next moves:

Levie also uses the word “social” quite a bit, referring to the fact that modern applications need to have sharing baked in or they’re simply behind the times — representing an ideological alignment with the Salesforce Social Enterprise initiative.

And as an extension of that social philosophy, Levie said November will see the formal launch of the Box Innovation Network, a technology partner program designed to build out the company’s ecosystem by reaching out to technology partners.

Needless to say, Box’s funding momentum alone would be a reason to keep close tabs on it, with more than $164 million raised just in 2011 by my math. Stay tuned to TalkinCloud for more on how Box entering growth mode might impact the cloud services channel.