Hello.app finalizes 'app' that will pay for yielding free mobile space for storage

In a digital society where technology accompanies every task and activity of daily life, the generation of information, data, and files requires a vast storage space, which until now has been concentrated in large multinational corporations that gather a large part of the information worldwide, such as Google, Dropbox, and Amazon. Against these technological giants, Hello.app emerges, proposing the opposite of storing data in a centralized way.

With this objective, the startup Hello.app provides tools to create a storage network using private devices through blockchain technology. To provide this space, the company will pay individuals who yield unused space from their devices, whether they are mobile phones, computers, or tablets.

Driven by entrepreneurs Álvaro Pintado and Alexander Baikalov, now 20 and 21 years old, the project currently operates in a web-only format and in beta version, and is preparing to launch its app, something it plans to do in the coming months. It currently has 250,000 users worldwide, and aims to reach three million users in the next year.

The platform, Web3 and open source, will allow either to save information and files on the network, or to offer part of the device's space to this network, two functions that will be incompatible with each other. Users who charge for yielding their space can stop doing so when they need to, and can withdraw the money generated by renting their space when they deem it appropriate, starting from a minimum to be set, around five or ten euros.

The price that users charge for yielding or saving space will be determined by supply and demand, through an algorithm. A team of eight young people between 18 and 28 years old works in programming within Hello.app, but it also has a network of external collaborators, who can contribute to the development of the platform as it is open source.

The tool is designed so that both individuals and companies can store their data in it, although the startup foresees that the benefits will come mainly from the business sector. Despite the complexity of the project and its development, Pintado emphasizes that "the idea is that using the app should be as easy as possible," so that any user can use it to yield space or to store their files.

Since its launch three years ago, Hello.app has raised close to 800,000 euros, the last 500,000 coming from a financing round that closed in July, with which the company came to be valued at 16 million. The company, which bought the most expensive domain in history in Spain for 107,000 euros, aims to continue growing until it becomes a unicorn in the next three years.