With its stated goal of raising $250 million from investors, Dropbox believes it's now worth $8 billion, The Los Angeles Times reported. When the the San Francisco-based company last sought funding in 2011, it also raised $250 million, but valued itself at $4 billion. Whereas most of that money (30 year-old chief executive Chris Houston "bragged" there was still some money left, according to Business Week) went towards technological development focused on consumers, its next $250 million will attempt to corner the business market.
"What we can say is that with over 200 million users and 4 million businesses, Dropbox has continued and strong momentum," Dropbox spokeswoman Ana Andreescu told Business Week.
In addition to doubling its usage from last year, Dropbox pulled in $200 million in revenue this year, according to The LA Times.
By its most basic definition, Dropbox provides its customers a space to store data, an area previously known as the "backwater of the Silicon Valley technology scene," according to The New York Times.
Because entry into the business of online data storage is relatively easy (a competing company called Box is currently valued at $1 billion), critics question the sustainability of Dropbox. Houston admits the market is huge, but considers it a positive that it is growing so rapidly and defended his company's staying power.
"We think about what are the problems out there that people don't know they have," Houston said.
Dropbox has also distinguished itself through its many acquisitions of smaller companies. More funds could continue to drive those ambitions, according to The New York Times.
"I thought I was keeping up with the Joneses," joked Dave Goldberg, chief executive of SurveyMonkey (raised $800 million for $1.35 billion), of the number of tech companies that have sought high valuations over the last few years, including SnapChat's rejection of a $3 billion offer from Facebook last week.
"I think what we are seeing here is certainly some frothiness in valuations of Internet companies," Goldberg told the LA Times. "But on the other hand, we are seeing that these are global businesses being built very quickly at scale. That is very different than 13 or 14 years ago. It doesn't mean all of these companies will be successful, but if they are successful, the scale will be so much greater than what was imaginable in the first bubble."
"Some of them are going to crash and burn," Goldberg said.
Dropbox is expected to go public in the next few months.
