Though Crunchbase puts Dropbox’s launch in June of 2007, the startup first came on TechCrunch’s radar that August at YC Demo Day. We wrote at the time Dropbox was, “creating a transparent file management system (Mac/Win) that aims to: sync your desktop files on the web, back up files, provide access anywhere, and make files easy to share.””,Image Credits:Getty / Getty ImagesDropbox got a nice little $1.2 million in seedu00a0from Sequoia later that year but we didn’t hear much from the company till the Spring of 2008 — the heyday of little storage solution pop-ups — when people started talking about Dropbox being one of the breakouts they might actually choose over competitors Box.net (now Box) and Mozy.
Co-founder and CEO Drew Houston was later invited to come on stage with us at the precursor to Disrupt, TechCrunch50.”,Dropbox pulled in another $6 million in Series A, led by Sequoia, in 2008. The tech press didn’t find out about it till a full year later. CEO Drew Houston told TechCrunch at the time membership numbers were up by 25 percent and growing, thanks in part to the company’s new iPhone app.
The company hit 1 million members in the spring of 2009.”,Dropbox quadrupled membership in less than a year and began hiring from some bigger name tech companies likeu00a0Adam Grossu00a0from Salesforce as its Senior Vice President, Marketing and Sales.”,In September of 2011, TechCrunch broke the story that Dropbox was getting a serious cash infusion to the tune of $250 million in Series B investment, led by Index Ventures and giving the company a $4 billion valuation.
Apple reportedlyu00a0had previously offered the startup a “nine digit” acquisition figure, according to TechCrunch sources. It couldn’t have been easy for CEO Drew Houston to say no to Steve Jobs but look where it got him.”,Image Credits:Bloomberg / ContributorThe Crunchies are no more but the history remains — some of the biggest tech companies and founders have appeared on stage with us at the now defunct annual Silicon Valley awards show. In 2012, Dropbox co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi did just that to accept the award for Best Overall Startup of the year.
Dropbox would go on to win a Crunchies for Best Cloud Service and Houston would winu00a0as the runner up for Founder of the Year in 2012.”,Thanks to all that previously raised cash, Dropbox was able to bring in a massive amount of members to the cloud files fold.u00a0In November of 2012 it had 100 million users. A year later, it had doubled in size to 200 million. It was now poaching top talent from Google, Facebook and other big tech companies.”,More cash came in January of 2014 when Dropbox raised a whopping $350 millionu00a0from BlackRock and others to help the company beat out its fast-growing competitor Box.
Both the Wall Street Journal and Recode put the valuation at $10 billion at the time.”,JPMorgan jumped in later in 2014 to give Dropbox $500 million in debt financing. Box was eyeing an initial public offering at the time and Dropbox needed the capital to keep pace with its cloud storage competitor.”,Image Credits:Momo Productions / Getty ImagesDropbox announced that it had achieved a key financial milestone, with cash flow positive status as of 2016. “It means you control your destiny,” said Houston. He also emphasized that the company wasn’t in a rush to go public.”,Image Credits:Ismagilov (opens in a new window) / Shutterstock (opens in a new window) (Image has been modified)Dropbox said it was on track for $1 billion in revenue for 2017. This is a big number for any pre-IPO company, especially one where most of its users don’t pay for the product.u00a0 Its growing Dropbox Business category for enterprise users has helped the company achieve this hefty sales milestone.”,Three years later, in March of 2017, Dropbox takes in another $600 million in debt financing from JPMorgan, bringing the total owed to the bank to $1.1 billion.
The startup, if you can call it that at this point, remains at a $10 billion valuation.”,
Dropbox first appeared on the startup scene with its debut at Y Combinator Demo Day way back in the summer of 2007. Since then, the company has grown to hundreds of millions of users and to a value of more than $10 billion dollars — putting it in a cherry position for a much-anticipated initial public offering.
But how did this cloud storage company take on the world, beating out so many competitors on its way to success? Journey with us as we walk you through a brief history of Dropbox.
I write about the wild new frontier of biotechnology (3D printed organs, one drop blood tests, or hamburgers grown in a lab? I’m your gal), also a bit of politics, gender and diversity and sometimes they put me on camera at TechCrunch so send your fun gadgets and gizmos my way.
Katie Roof was a senior writer and video host at TechCrunch. She also co-hosted TechCrunch’s “Equity” podcast about tech finance. Previously, Roof was a tech reporter for FOXBusiness.com and has been a contributor at Reuters, TheStreet and Forbes. She has held television production roles at CNN and Bloomberg TV. Roof has a Master’s in Business Journalism from Columbia University.
