Sources reveal that Box an online enterprise storage and collaboration firm has secretly filed the paper work that will be used for an IPO (initial public order) of its stock. Wall Street Journal and Quartz reported this citing that the company filed confidential paperwork that would allow them to go public. This implies that the company will be able to commence trading like a public company way before Dropbox which its main rival. Both companies were listed among the ones to look out for this year as the most waited for tech IPOs in 2014. This happens when there is a new law that permits any companies that earn less that $1 billion every year to file drafts confidently of their IPO prospectus. This is to be done with the Exchange Commission or US Securities.
One of the companies that have taken advantage of the JOBS Act is Twitter. There seems to be a declaration that this year will be that of secret IPOs. A spokesman from Box however said that the company did not have anything they would share with the public as it was putting in efforts to build the business as well as expand great customer relationships all over the world. This was written as part of an email that was written to Quartz.
To help the company underwrite its stock offering, Box has already gone ahead to tap some banks such as Credit Suisse, JP Morgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. In 2012, it has managed to raise over $100 million in pay wall; this was at a valuation of over $ 1 billion. The venture backed organization that is run by Aaron Levie a wunderkind who has not yet clocked thirty years will probably be looking to raise at least $ 500 million when the IPO sets off.
Dropbox on the other hand has also managed to raise $ 250 million when they did a fundraising that was driven by BlackRock Investment Fund. Its valuation at the time was $10 billion. The main strategy that Dropbox was more focused on the consumers but it is now moving to test the waters in corporate world. Box on the other hand is now strategizing on how to go after consumers after it has already built an entire enterprise storage business. It offered 50 gigabytes recently of free storage to all the users who were using its newly launched mobile applications.
The company which was a dorm room project for co- founders Dylan Smith and Aaron Levie when they were in USC has been in existence for about 8 years. Today the company prides itself with thousands of business users which include 97% of Fortune 500. Signing up for the IPO is definitely a good move for the business which for a long time has been riding on major goodwill as well as some challenges as it works towards scaling the business as well as its infrastructure. This might also be necessary so that the company is able to accommodate its rapidly growing account sizes and user bases to offer the best services and make sure that the product keeps up.
