Cloud storage company Dropbox filed to raise $500 million in a public offering on Friday, giving investors a first look at the books of a coveted unicorn start-up that was previously valued at $10 billion.
Here’s what the filing said:
- Revenue: $1.11 billion in 2017, up 31 percent from the prior year
- Net loss: $111.7 million in 2017, narrower than 2016’s loss of $210.2 million
- Average revenue per paid user: $111.91, up from 2016 but down from 2015
- 500 million registered users, 100 million signed up since the beginning of 2017
- More than 11 million paying users
- Gross margin: 67 percent
Dropbox will list on the Nasdaq under the ticker “DBX.” Dropbox’s plans to go public were unsealed by the SEC on Friday, after previously filing the documents confidentially.
The documents showed that CEO and co-founder Drew Houston has 24.4 percent of voting power in the company, and Sequoia Capital has 24.8 percent.
Dropbox’s expenses have been driven by a swelling R&D budget, but the company became free-cash-flow positive in 2016. Unlike many cloud companies that rely on enterprise sales teams, over 90 percent of Dropbox’s revenue comes from users purchasing their own subscription, the company said.
Still, the loss-making company has about $1.7 billion in contractual obligations, like leases, outstanding. Dropbox also has a multi-million dollar relationship with Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It has some stiff competition, as well: Aspects of Dropbox’s business compete with giants like Amazon, Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Proceeds from the IPO will be used to fund an expansion plan of upgrading more users to subscriptions and expanding integration with third-party software. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Deutsche Bank and Allen and Company are among the top underwriters for the IPO.
Shares of Box, a rival company, rose 2.8 percent after the release of Dropbox’s prospectus. Dropbox is a 5-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company.
