The file-storage company Dropbox has filed papers indicating its attention public, according to business news site Bloomberg. This will lead to an initial public offering (a type of public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors) at an unspecified time during 2018. Indications are that Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will lead the potential listing.
The listing is designed to test Dropbox’s most recent valuation, which was set at $10 billion. However, this net worth has been criticized by some investors as being overvalued. Whatever the evaluation it stands that San Francisco headquartered Dropbox remains one of highest-worth venture-backed companies that remains in private hands.
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by American company Dropbox, Inc. The company provides cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. The company was founded in 2007, by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.
The service works by Dropbox creating a special folder on the a computer. The contents of which are then synchronized to Dropbox’s servers and to other computers that a user has installed Dropbox on. This serves to keep files up-to-date on all devices.
There are a small group of investors who have access to Dropbox, these are: Sequoia, Accel, Index Ventures and Y Combinator. These investors are set for big pay-out should the public flotation of Dropbox go through.
One reason why Dropbox has been hesitant is due to the experience of ts main competitor Box, which kicked off an initial public offering in 2015. This led to a fall in the stock price over the proceeding six months. In time, Recode reports, Box rebounded and enjoys a market value today of around $3 billion. Another reason for the apparent delay has been with waiting of more favorable stock market conditions.
