Today Box announced that Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior will join its board of directors, thus adding another outside member and woman to its leadership team. Warrior was also previously the CTO of Motorola.
Box is widely expected to have filed for a public offering of its shares, albeit privately. The company recently raised another $100 million, at a valuation of around $2 billion. Box has raised $414 million in total.
The addition of Cisco to Box’s board does raise the specter of a non-public exit; if Box decides against going public, or wants to delay the offering, it could have a corporate ally sitting nearby looking to make a move. Cisco is worth more than $110 billion and has cash and short-term investments of more than $40 billion.
For Cisco, swallowing Box would be more than affordable.
Box competes with companies like Dropbox and Egnyte, and services, such as OneDrive and Drive from Microsoft and Google, respectively.
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