Cloud storage startup Upthere, Inc. has raised $77 million in a round led by KPCB and Western Digital that also included Elevation Partners, Floodgate, GV, NTT Docomo Ventures, and Square 1 Bank.

Based in Palo Alto and started by former Apple engineers including former Mac software engineering chief Bertrand Serlet, Upthere states its mission is to care for humankind’s information through a cloud computer product designed to be the one home for a user’s’ personal data including photos, videos, music, and documents.

While that sounds like one of any number of products already on the market, Upthere eschews the traditional file sync model in favor of everything being stored in the cloud with no local copy on a computer or mobile device.

Users interface with the data through the Upthere home application, which delivers the ability to edit files stored on the service along with the ability to save edited version directly back to the Upthere cloud account.

Like competing services sharing is built in natively however instead of downloading a copy of a document sharing remains native to the app with the original copy remaining the only copy; organization is implemented through what the company calls “loops” which are collections of hosted files that can be shared with other users.

Different

The best thing you can say about Upthere is that it’s different, and that has both positive and negative connotations.

The concept of storing items on the cloud is hardly a new idea and is ultimately where the market is heading, but not having those files stored locally immediately raises the issue of what happens when an end user has poor internet access or no internet access at all?

Upthere does not address that at all and is instead pitching a line that local data storage has its own problems:

Our devices help bring our imaginations to life with their cameras, touch screens, and sensors. But in order to fit in our pockets, last throughout the day, and be always connected, they’ve made compromises. Our devices no longer have enough speed or space or battery to store, share, and compute all of our digital stuff.

But the cloud does. It is more reliable, expandable, accessible, and affordable. It connects us with friends and family. It can mobilize massive computing power to find patterns in its oceans of data. By directly joining the device and the cloud, a more powerful computer emerges.

On a plane or out of range and want to edit a document? Tough luck seems to be the response from the company.

The last issue is that the product isn’t free: after an initial trial period users pay $4.99 a month for 200GB of storage and according to TechCrunch an additional $1.99 a month for every extra 100GB; sure, any company is entitled to charge for a product but one such as this in a market where many similar services offer large amounts of free storage makes it a hard sell.

If you do want to try it out Upthere has apps for OS X, Android and iOS with a Windows client currently in beta.

Image credit: Upthere