SoftBank backs Sabeer Bhatia's InstaColl

InstaColl, the collaboration offering started by Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia, has announced that it has secured its first round of institutional funding from SoftBank Corp, Japan. InstaColl is the first company in India to be backed by SoftBank. Transaction details were not disclosed.

The company also announced the launch of a new offering, InstaSecure, that enables the persistent protection of critical business documents and prevent information leakage and theft.

According to InstaColl, InstaSecure is a new hosted service that enables knowledge workers to better protect, share and track the usage of Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel documents as part of day-to-day communications and collaboration.

This web-based service gives business professionals the power to grant and dynamically revoke access to documents distributed inside or outside the firewall, as well as audit actions such as opening, adding comments to, or printing those documents.

"Business collaboration relies on exchanging important information between companies. Individuals in small and mid-sized organisations, however, often have difficulty controlling information once it's been distributed. Other security solutions only offer control for the first time a file is accessed by recipients, leaving critical documents such as proposals and legal agreements vulnerable to being shared further without the knowledge of the author," said Kaushal Cavale, chief operating officer at InstaColl.

"With InstaSecure, we're putting the control and protection of sensitive information within the reach of individuals in businesses of all sizes. Users will find that InstaSecure will bring great benefits in terms of securely sharing and managing critical business documents," said Adarsh Kini, chief technology officer at InstaColl.

According to InstaColl, InstaSecure is designed for the professional who shares or publishes business-, time- or version-sensitive documents.

Whether it's an independent graphics designer submitting designs for client review, or a legal practice exchanging sensitive files with clients, users can customise access settings, closely audit usage of their documents, and retain control over the files regardless of where they travel.

Users also have the ability to set expiration dates on documents, automatically access updated content each time a document is changed, supersede an older version once a new version is distributed, and revoke access after distribution.

They even have the ability to track who has received the documents and what recipients have done, or attempted to do, with the files.

A statement from InstaColl states that business professionals are able to add persistent protection and dynamic controls to files in several ways with InstaSecure.

"They can create secure documents through a one-click connection to the service, easily apply security settings to those documents from within Microsoft Office. To protect Microsoft Word and Excel files, users simply install a lightweight plug-in that enables them to apply dynamic security settings directly from those applications, as well," the statement added.

InstaSecure joins InstaColl and InstaAssist as part of a suite of hosted services that enable individual knowledge workers to gain access to world-class communication and collaboration technologies.

Moving forward, InstaColl expects to deliver additional hosted services to complement these services.