US: Dropbox files for IPO

Cloud storage companyDropbox filed for an initial public offering, seeking to raise an estimated US$500 million for the Silicon Valley cloud computing storage startup.

The San Francisco company claimed 500 million users in 180 countries and US$1 billion in annual revenues in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Dropbox said its shares will trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol “DBX”.

Its valuation based on recent funding in the group stands at around $10 billion, making Dropbox one of the biggest Silicon Valley venture-backed “unicorns,” or startups with a private valuation of more than US$1 billion.

“The market is hot right now,” tech analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group said while discussing the move by Dropbox to go public with shares. “If you are going to do an IPO, you are in the window. People are investing.”

What remains to be seen, Enderle noted, was whether Dropbox shrewdly spends the money it raises. Dropbox is one of a number of tech firms centred around the Internet cloud services, allowing users to store data on one device for access by other computing devices.

Full Content: The Wall Street Journal

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