According to TechCrunch, Y Combinator-backed Poly has completely pivoted from its original 3D asset generation business to launch as a cloud-hosted file storage service with AI-powered search. The startup, founded in 2022 by Abhay Agarwal and Sam Young, just raised $8 million in seed funding led by Felicis with participation from Bloomberg Beta and others. They’re offering a massive 100GB of free storage and charging $10 monthly for 1TB, significantly more than competitors’ free tiers. The tool supports text, PDFs, office docs, images, audio, video, and web files, letting users ask questions about their content and even generate summaries. After shutting down their previous product in 2023 and building in stealth, they’re now launching publicly with web and Mac versions available immediately.
Another AI search play
Look, we’ve seen this movie before. Another week, another startup promising to solve the “messy files” problem with AI magic. But here’s the thing – Poly’s approach actually makes some sense. Instead of trying to connect to all your existing cloud services, they’re basically saying “dump everything here and we’ll make it searchable.” It’s a bold move, especially when everyone already has their files scattered across Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, and whatever else.
The 100GB free storage is genuinely interesting though. That’s way more than Google Drive’s 15GB or Dropbox’s 2GB. They’re clearly using storage as the carrot to get people in the door. But I wonder – is storage really the problem people have? Or is it actually the organizational habits that need fixing?
From 3D to file search
This pivot story is pretty telling. The founders originally built a 3D asset generation tool, then watched as competitors like Midjourney and Stability AI raised massive rounds and dominated the space. Agarwal admits they “didn’t predict that the AI image and asset generation industry would blow up.” That’s startup life – sometimes you pick the right wave but the wrong surfboard.
So they interviewed users and found that file organization was a bigger pain point. Smart move? Probably. But pivoting from 3D generation to file search is… quite the leap. It makes you wonder if they’re just chasing whatever AI trend seems hottest rather than building something truly differentiated.
The competition is fierce
Let’s be real – they’re going up against giants. Google Drive and Dropbox aren’t exactly sitting still. Both have been adding AI features, and Google’s NotebookLM already does similar project-based organization. The TechCrunch writer says Poly’s search worked better in testing, but that’s one person’s experience over a few days.
What Poly does have going for it is focus. They’re targeting “Gen AI native creators and knowledge workers” specifically. The shared drives feature where multiple people can ask questions about files could be genuinely useful for teams. And the ability to paste YouTube links and get summaries? That’s clever.
Storage isn’t the real product
Here’s my take: the storage is just the entry point. The real value – if there is any – will come from how well the AI actually understands your files and relationships between them. Agarwal says early testers used it as “working storage for projects,” which suggests people are treating it more like a smart notebook than a backup solution.
The Poly app currently lacks direct photo sync and some other integrations, but they’re planning web search, markdown editing, and spreadsheet analysis features. If they can deliver on that roadmap while maintaining the search quality, they might have something. But with Bloomberg Beta and other investors backing them, they’ve at least bought themselves some runway to figure it out.
Ultimately, the question isn’t whether we need better file organization – we absolutely do. It’s whether another standalone app is the solution, or if this functionality will just get baked into the operating systems and cloud services we already use. Poly’s betting big that there’s room for a dedicated AI-native file system. We’ll see if users agree.
