Box files for IPO seeking $250M on NYSE
After months of speculation, late-stage startup Box announces plans for its initial public offering, slated for next month on the New York Stock Exchange.
Box, the cloud storage and enterprise collaboration company, has decided to finally reveal its plans for a much-anticipated IPO, the company announced via Twitter Monday. The company will seek to raise $250 million on the New York Stock Exchange next month, with a price announcement pending.
Box's S-1 will be publicly filed this afternoon. This tweet does not constitute an offer of any securities for sale.
-- Box (@BoxHQ) March 24, 2014
The move marks an end to rounds of speculation over whether or not the 9-year-old business-oriented startup, headed up by 29-year-old CEO Aaron Levie, would beat competitor Dropbox to an IPO. Both companies have been near the top of countless lists in recent months analyzing the next big tech IPO.
In January, it was reported that Box had secretly filed paperwork for its IPO, as Twitter did back in September thanks to a new provision in the JOBS Act that allows companies with revenues less than $1 billion to confidentially file drafts with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Credit Suisse are running the filing, which Recode earlier reported. Box reported $124.2 million in revenue for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2014, a 111 percent increase from the previous year, with a loss of $169 million, according to its SEC filing.
The loss incurred comes from operating expenses of $257 million, or $21 million a month, that left Box with roughly $109 million in the bank going into fiscal 2014. Between January 2013 and January 2014, Box's sales and marketing expenses grew up from $99.1 million to $171 million.