Yesterday, Dropbox announced their bags are packed, their terms are set, and they’re hoping to hit the stock market next week.
According to The New York Times, the cloud storage company plans to raise as much as $648m in the IPO, giving the company a valuation of around $7.5B.
All eyes are on Dropbox as they take the plunge
Dropbox will be one of the first penguins to jump off the private sector ledge at a time when big ’corns like Uber and Airbnb are considering going public.
But Dropbox’s valuation comes in well below the company’s $10B appraisal from 4 years ago, suggesting what many private unicorns fear: that Wall Street isn’t as jazzed about tech companies as venture capitalists are.
Or maybe it’s just them…
Cloud computing has blown up since Dropbox hit the scene in 2007 as the los lonely boys of a then-untapped market.
Now, they’re competing with some of the biggest companies in the world, which may have influenced Dropbox’s down-round listing (though, some feel it was overpriced back in 2014).
That said, it doesn’t necessarily mean the company is doomed. Last year they officially broke $1B in annual revenue and have more than 500m registered users in 180 countries.
According to Santosh Rao, the head of research at Manhattan Venture Partners, “It doesn’t have the mass appeal of a Facebook, but I think in a niche market, it has its presence.”