We’ve known for weeks now that Dropbox has been talking to investors about a new mega round of funding. The company, which has only raised $7.2 million in a seed and Series A round in 2007, has been seeking something between $200 million and $300 million, we’ve heard. But now we know a bit more. And we’ve heard something from one source that is nothing short of shocking.
Dropbox held an auction last week during which investors made their bids to participate in the new round, multiple sources tell us. This week, Dropbox met with the VCs that made bids, and have been collecting term sheets. All they have to do now is decide.
Here’s the really crazy thing: one of the offers being considered may push Dropbox’s valuation to $10 billion post-money, one source tells us. Another source thinks that’s inaccurate, and believes the final valuation will settle closer to the lower end of the $5 billion to $10 billion valuation we reported last month.
A $10 billion valuation would be amazing for a number of reasons. But consider this: Pandora and LinkedIn, two companies that recently went public, have market caps of $2.16 billion and $8.63 billion, respectively. Yes, a startup with just 65 employees could be worth more money on paper than those two public darlings.
Also consider: Yahoo has a market cap of just $15.30 billion. And our parent, AOL, has a market cap of just $1.72 billion.
Dropbox has 25 million users (many of which are paying), uploading 200 million files a day.
More to come soon.
Dropbox was founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi. Frustrated by working from multiple computers, Drew was inspired to create a service that would let people bring all their files anywhere, with no need to email around attachments. Drew created a demo of Dropbox and showed it to fellow MIT student Arash Ferdowsi, who dropped out with only one semester left to help make Dropbox a reality. Guiding their decisions was a relentless focus on crafting a...
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