{"id":12192,"date":"2015-01-12T00:47:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-12T00:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2015\/jan\/12\/box-has-another-go-ipo-after-cloud-market-sweetens\/"},"modified":"2015-01-12T00:47:37","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T00:47:37","slug":"box-has-another-go-at-ipo-after-cloud-market-sweetens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/box-has-another-go-at-ipo-after-cloud-market-sweetens\/","title":{"rendered":"Box has another go at IPO after cloud market sweetens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/jdlasica\/10049693583\/in\/photolist-gj3WsG-gj4iM2-gj4ixz-h6tZ29-h6tV3B-h6tZqA-fPytpo-fPytiJ-jYepFr-d9Uwto-d9Uwyo-d9Uw6h-h6uzbv-h6uCr9-h6cyWr-fPgVXx-fPytfy-jYeKHZ-fPgW1D-fPgVTZ-fPgW34-fPxHXy-fPgbqn-d9UvR6-d9UvEH-d9Uwzh-d9UZav-d9UvqF-chgBH1-chgBW9-chgCVm-chgCGd-9ahi5b-8oaQMZ-8odi7j-bAeaLQ-daMrKq-d9W79S-9bTA5m-aFgaBc-aFjYsu-aFgaCp-chgCe7-9bTzmh-9bQv5H-9bQvQx-p8jzjj-oSRMiG-p8jzmJ-p8jzdY\"><em>Picture credit: JD Lasica\/Flickr<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cloud storage provider Box is set to finally go public nine months after its aborted first attempt, according to an updated regulatory filing.<\/p>\n<p>The updated S-1 filing, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sec.gov\/Archives\/edgar\/data\/1372612\/000119312514112417\/d642425ds1.htm#toc642425_10\">viewable here<\/a>, outlines plans to sell 12.5 million shares at between $11 and $13 a share, with CEO Aaron Levie tweeting a thinly veiled comment on the delay:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p>Well that certainly took a while.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Aaron Levie (@levie) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/levie\/status\/553588435832029186\">January 9, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script charset=\"utf-8\" type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>There was plenty of furore back in March when reports surfaced that Box had filed for IPO, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2014\/mar\/25\/aaron-levie-signs-chairmans-letter-go-cloud-box-prepares-ipo\/\">with this publication noting at the time<\/a> Levie&rsquo;s comment over how neither he nor CFO Dylan Smith had &ldquo;storied&rdquo; careers at IBM or Oracle, and the general disruption between cloudy upstarts and legacy tech vendors.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the ending wasn&rsquo;t a happy one; after shares of various public cloud companies tanked &ndash; no, not that sort of public cloud &ndash; the Los Altos-based firm decided to withdraw and keep its powder dry.<\/p>\n<p>In the updated document, many of the figures haven&rsquo;t changed. Profitability is at -137%, while sales and marketing spend remains at 137% of the firm&rsquo;s revenue. These are figures which don&rsquo;t seem to concern Tomasz Tunguz, venture capitalist at Redpoint, <a href=\"http:\/\/tomtunguz.com\/box-ipo\/\">who wrote in his blog<\/a>: &ldquo;Compared to other publicly traded SaaS companies, Box is among the least in efficient customer acquisition.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;But in this market, which values revenue growth and seemingly ignores profitability, the bottom line doesn&rsquo;t seem to matter as much as the top line. In that regard, Box is close to the top of the heap.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Events since then have improved Box&rsquo;s standing, not least the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2014\/may\/09\/box-strikes-deal-general-electric-enterprise-investments-pay\/\">acquisition of General Electric<\/a> as a new customer in May. In July, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.box.com\/2014\/07\/the-end-of-the-storage-wars\/\">Levie announced<\/a> the removal of cloud storage limits for Box&rsquo;s business customers, calling it &ldquo;the end of the storage wars.&rdquo; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2014\/oct\/28\/cloud-storage-wars-bitcasa-and-microsoft-stories-are-sign-times\/\">Given Microsoft responded in kind<\/a>, first by offering 1TB and then unlimited cloud storage for Office 365 subscribers, then it&rsquo;s clear the next phase for Box and its nearest competitors is not just the storage of data, but its location and protection as well.<\/p>\n<p>Not every pundit is in agreement, however. Vineet Jain, CEO of competitor Egnyte, previously spoke of the need for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2014\/apr\/10\/egnyte-launches-europe-why-ceo-believes-time-right\/\">&ldquo;basic financial sense&rdquo;<\/a> in IPO valuations. Yet Alex Gorbansky, CEO of Box partner Docurated, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2014\/apr\/10\/egnyte-launches-europe-why-ceo-believes-time-right\/\">told this publication back in September<\/a> of the difference between the media&rsquo;s comment and what customers are actually thinking. &ldquo;If you talk to customers and leading CIOs, they&rsquo;re all enthusiastically investing in Box,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Box is usually portrayed as a bitter rival of Dropbox, although both companies play this down. Yet Dropbox&rsquo;s recent business decisions &ndash; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cloudcomputing-news.net\/news\/2014\/nov\/05\/dropbox-and-microsoft-partner-office-365-storage-what-does-mean-onedrive\/\">partnering with Microsoft for Office 365, for instance<\/a> &ndash; marks a change in their strategy over recent months. Where Box goes from here, particularly given Microsoft and Google&rsquo;s aggressive push on cloud storage, among others, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Picture credit: JD Lasica\/Flickr<br \/>\nCloud storage provider Box is set to finally go public nine months after its aborted first attempt, according to an updated regulatory filing.<br \/>\nThe updated S-1 filing, viewable here, outlines plans to sell 12.5 million s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12192\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}