Dropbox Announces Conditions for IPO

Dropbox Inc. set terms for an initial public offering Monday that values the company as high as $8 billion. The company also announced a $100-million private placement by Salesforce Ventures.

The valuation, on a fully diluted basis, is about 20% below the $10-billion level the company achieved in its latest private funding round in 2014.

On a nondiluted basis, the company is valued around $6.7 billion, which is a closer comparison to what the company's market capitalization will be when the shares begin trading next week. Salesforce's venture arm had also invested previously in Dropbox's Series C funding round, data provided by Crunchbase show.

Dropbox, the provider of a cloud-based platform that enables users to store and share content, said in a new S-1 filing that it plans to sell 36 million Class A shares at $16 to $18 apiece. The company is issuing 27 million shares, while current investors, including co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, are selling nine million shares.

At the midpoint of the range, Dropbox's IPO would be $612 million, the largest tech offering since Snap (NYSE: SNAP) went public a year ago.

The company also announced a reverse stock split of 1.5 to 1 for current inside investors. That technique essentially allows Drobox to set a higher per-share price in its IPO without changing the economics of its previous owners or the company as a whole.

The terms announced on Monday effectively kick off the company's roadshow, where executives and bankers will market the deal to investors.

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