Dropbox is raising between $250 million and $400 million at a $10 billion valuation according to the Wall Street Journal and Re / code. Why? Because Dropbox has spent the last year rebuilding its product to make it work for businesses, and now it’s time to sell that product. How? Because a source says Dropbox has been doing well and felt it had the buzz behind it to take advantage of an easy fundraising market.
The money could also fund poaching top talent from other tech giants and big acquisitions. But with more competition than ever, Dropbox needs to do a big enterprises sales push before potential customers jump into bed with Box, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, or Amazon WorkSpaces.
Dropbox Grows UpDropbox built its name as a light-hearted consumer product. “Your files everywhere” was its motto, cutesy pencil drawings were its style, and its mascot? A Tyrannosaurus Rex wielding an AK-47…riding a shark…with a bald eagle on its back. The company even has a statue of the T-Rex in its San Francisco office’s foyer. Notice the lack of anything in this branding that would give businesses the assurance that Dropbox is secure, scalable, and great for complex teams.
Yet in terms of becoming a techie-household name, its viral strategy worked. Handing out gigabytes of free storage for signing up friends let it grow quickly. By November 2012 it had 100 million users. A year later, it had doubled in size to 200 million. Plus the fun-loving culture helped it poach big names like Google’s Guido Van Rossum – the father of Python, and veteran Facebook designers Soleio Cuervo and Rasmus Andersson.
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