Box ‘Secretly’ Files for IPO With US SEC – Report
Box uses new regulations to keep IPO a secret and hopes to raise £304m, according to reports
Box has reportedly filed for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), taking advantage of regulations that allow any company with annual revenues of less than $1 billion to secretly file a draft proposal of its IPO prospectus with the US Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) – just like Twitter did last year.
The enterprise cloud storage provider has long been linked with an IPO, with reports in November suggesting that it was preparing for a flotation in the first half of 2014 and that it had selected Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and JPMorgan Chase as its banks for the process.
Box IPO
Box raised $100 million in a funding round in 2012, giving the company a valuation of $1 billion, and it is hoped that the IPO will raise another $500 million (£304m). Dropbox, one of its biggest rivals, is also expected to launch an IPO later this year.
Aaron Levie has previously said that an IPO was definitely part of the company’s roadmap, which he would not discuss, and added “our long-term goal is to be an independent, public company.” However he added it was happy with its current position and was keen to continue its rapid growth while maintaining the same start-up atmosphere, while Box COO Dan Levin told TechWeekEurope that he was “incredibly pleased” with the development of Box as a business.
Box is currently pushing for a greater share of the consumer market and recently re-launched it iOS app, offering 50GB of free storage to anyone who downloads the app in the thirty days following its release.
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