Dropbox, the file-sharing company that’s been privately valued at US$10bn, filed for a US initial public offering, saying it was at scale and capable of moving fast.
The company filed with an offering size of $500m, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. That amount is a placeholder and is likely to change. The company plans to use the proceeds to pay down debt and for general corporate purposes.
Dropbox, which was valued at $10bn in its 2014 funding round, would be one of the biggest US enterprise technology companies to list domestically in several years. First Data Corp went public at a market value of about $14bn in 2015 — the biggest such IPO in the past five years.
“While we’re at scale, we can still move quickly,” Dropbox co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi said in a letter to shareholders included in Friday’s filing. “Imagine if every minute at work were well spent — if we could focus and spend our time on the things that matter. This is the world we want to live in.”
While Dropbox has been touting its scale — with more than 500m registered users — and the fact that it is cash-flow positive, the filing gives a more in-depth look at its financials. The company’s revenue increased more 30% last year to $1.1bn from $845m in 2016. In the same period, the company’s net losses shrank to $112m from $210m.
Goldman Sachs Group, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Deutsche Bank and Allen & Co are leading the offering. The company plans to list on Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol DBX. — Reported by Alex Barinka, (c) 2018 Bloomberg LP
