Nobody going to rain on Box‘s cloud. The cloud-storage startup hit the news yesterday when the WSJ reported that it would be delaying its IPO to June, a story that was further elaborated with news from Bloomberg that it will be the end of May, because of precarious market conditions. Now, Box has now come out to dispel reports…. somewhat:
“Our IPO has never had a set date,” said a spokesperson. “Since filing, we’ve planned on going when it makes the most sense for the market. That plan hasn’t changed.”
The company filed for a $250 million IPO a little over a month ago. But at the time it disclosed full-years sales of $124 million on a net loss of $168 million. That discrepancy, and a general question mark over the health of the tech IPO market at the moment after iffy starts for King and Weibo (not that either have anything to do with Box’s business model, but the market sometimes glosses over nuances like that, I suppose). This has led many to speculate over what may happen next with enterprise-focused Box.
Yesterday we reported a couple of different scenarios for why the company might change course, including the company shifting the end date of its fiscal year. In any case there didn’t appear to be any evidence of the company starting its roadshow yet.
The big question, perhaps, is what Box will do longer term if it delays an IPO for much longer.