Box (company)

Box Inc.
Type Public company (NYSE: BOX)
Headquarters Los Altos, California
Founder(s) Aaron Levie, Dylan Smith, Sam Ghods, Jeff Queisser[1]
Key people Aaron Levie (CEO)
Dan Levin (COO, President)
Dylan Smith (CFO)
Industry Technology
Employees 750 (as of 2013)[2]
Website www.box.com
Alexa rank positive decrease 697 (November 2014)[3]
Launched 2005 in Mercer Island, Washington

Box (formerly Box.net) is an online file sharing and personal cloud content management service for businesses. The company adopted a freemium business model, and provides up to 10 GB of free storage for personal accounts.[4] A mobile version of the service is available for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, WebOS, and Windows Phone devices.[5] The company is based in Los Altos, California.[6]

Business model

Box is a cloud computing business which provides file-sharing, collaborating, and other tools for working with files that are uploaded to its servers. Users can determine how their content can be shared with other users.[7] Users may invite others to view and/or edit an account's shared files, upload documents and photos to a shared files folder (and thus share those documents outside of Box), and give other users rights to view shared files.[8]

Box offers 3 account types: Enterprise, Business and Personal.[9] Depending on the type of account, Box has features such as unlimited storage, custom branding and administrative controls. Other systems, such as Google apps, NetSuite and Salesforce can be integrated with Box.

Box's enterprise clients include GE,[10] Schneider Electric,[11] and Procter & Gamble.[12]

OpenBox

In December 2007 the company announced OpenBox, which connects content from Box with other web-based applications and services. Included were online services EchoSign, Autodesk, Zoho, ThinkFree, Scribd, Picnik, Zazzle, Twitter and Myxer. Since then, OpenBox added NetSuite, Salesforce, Google Apps, FedEx, MindMeister, Fuze Meeting and others.

OpenBox allows developers to create services that interact with files on Box.com. The application programming interface is implemented over conventional XML.[13]

Acquisitions

In November 2014, Box acquired two-man medical-imaging software startup MedXT for $3.84 million.[14]

Funding

Box received angel capital from Mark Cuban in 2005, then raised a Series A round of $1.5 million from Draper Fisher Jurvetson in 2006. In late 2007, it raised a Series B round of $6 million, and another $7.1 million in 2009 from U.S. Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, bringing total investment to $14.6 million.[15]

In October 2009, Box acquired Increo Solutions, the developer of collaborative online document and media viewing tools Backboard and Embedit.in. As a result of this acquisition, Box launched two new features in January 2010: an integrated content viewer and the ability to embed these files anywhere on the web.[16] As part of the acquisition, Increo's CEO Kimber Lockhart joined Box and is now the Senior Director of Web Application Engineering.

In 2011, the company closed a $48 million funding round led by Meritech Capital Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, and Emergence Capital Partners. The 48 million included 10 million in debt financing from Hercules Technology Growth Capital.[17] "There was no capital limit and we could've raised more," said Mr. Levie.[18] Later that year, Box closed an $81 million funding round with investors including SAP and salesforce.com.[19] Revenues in 2011 were viewed by Will Smale of BBC News as being "not too shabby", considering the company's foundation date of 2005.[20]

In mid-2012, Box raised $125 million from General Atlantic and some of the company's previous backers, valuing Box at between $1.2 to 1.5 billion.[21]

According to a public document filed in October 2013, the company will raise a new funding round of $100 million.[22]

In January 2014, the company secretly filed for an IPO on the NYSE with the US Government under the JOBS Act. In March 2014, the company released financial data as part of that process.[23][24] Citing market fluctuations[25] the company delayed the IPO until January 23, 2015.[26]

Reception

Aaron Levie speaks at "The Cloud Rises: The Latest From a Ten-Year-Old Trend" (Aspen Institute Campus)

In 2009, the Company was awarded the Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal's Emerging Tech award for the cloud computing category,[27] and was a WebWare 100 Award winner in 2007 and 2008, and one of AlwaysOn's "AO Top Private Companies" for 2007.[28] Cofounders Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith were among the top five finalists in Business Week's "Best Entrepreneurs 25 and Under" rankings for 2009.[29] In 2009, Box was nominated "Best Enterprise Start-up" Crunchie In 2010,[30] and was listed as one of the "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies" by Lead411.[31]

The company's CEO, Aaron Levie, published blog articles on TechCrunch.[32][33] He spoke at industry events.[34] The company's CFO, Dylan Smith, was on an episode of the reality TV show Millionaire Matchmaker in 2010.[35]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Box Leadership
  2. ↑ Data Storage Player Prepares to Compete Overseas
  3. ↑ "box.com Site Overview". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-11-07.
  4. ↑ Fisher, Sharon (2010-11-03). "Box.net Expands Capacity And Services – Network Computing". Networkcomputing.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  5. ↑ "Box Mobile Access". Box.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  6. ↑ "Personal Product Overview". Box. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  7. ↑ https://app.box.com/legal_text/privacy_policy
  8. ↑ "Privacy Policy". Box. 2012-06-13. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  9. ↑ "Select a Plan". Box. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  10. ↑ http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/08/box-scores-huge-win-with-ge/
  11. ↑ http://www.citeworld.com/article/2115579/cloud-computing/schneider-electric-stifles-shadow-it-box-implementation-hits-25000-virally.html
  12. ↑ http://www.informationweek.com/how-pandg-promotes-box-file-sharing/d/d-id/1100441?
  13. ↑ "Box Platform Developer Documentation / Welcome to the Box Platform". Developers.box.net. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  14. ↑ By Jordan Novet, VentureBeat. “Box paid out $3.8M in stock to buy MedXT.” November 17, 2014. November 17, 2014.
  15. ↑ Box.net#cite note-0
  16. ↑ Box.net#cite note-3
  17. ↑ Douglas MacMillan - 2011-02-24T16:22:08Z (2011-02-24). "Box.net Receives $48 Million Investment, Led by Meritech – Bloomberg". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  18. ↑ Pui-Wing Tam, & Amir Efrati. (2011, March 10). Web Start-Ups Get Upper Hand Over Investors --- VC Firms Drive Up Valuations, Attach Fewer Strings to Deals. Wall Street Journal (Eastern Edition), p. B.1. Retrieved March 24, 2011, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 2287815741).
  19. ↑ "SAP, Salesforce Invest in Box Cloud Collaboration Service". Enterprise Apps Today. 2011-10-17. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  20. ↑ Smale, Will (May 20, 2013). "Aaron Levie: Not your typical multimillionaire". BBC News. Retrieved 2013-05-20.
  21. ↑ Shih, Gerry (2012-07-31). "CORRECTED-General Atlantic invests $100 mln in Box". Reuters. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  22. ↑ Eric Blattberg, VentureBeat. “Box strikes back at Dropbox with $100M round and a $2B valuation.” Nov 20, 2013. Retrieved Nov 21, 2013.
  23. ↑ Hardy, Quentin (24 March 2014). "Box, a Cloud Storage Firm, Plans I.P.O.". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  24. ↑ "Form S-1 - Box, Inc". United States Security and Exchange Commission. 24 March 2014. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
  25. ↑ Hu, Denni (23 October 2014). "Venture Capital Confidence Drops as Market Fluctuates". Bloomberg. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  26. ↑ Picker, Leslie; Antonia, Massa (23 January 2015). "Box Surges in Cloud-Storage Debut After $175 Million IPO". Bloomberg. Retrieved 26 January 2015.
  27. ↑ "Box.net lets you store, share, work in the computing cloud". December 6, 2009.
  28. ↑ "The 2007 AlwaysOn Top 100 Private Companies". Scribd.com. 2009-06-16. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  29. ↑ "The Winning Young Entrepreneurs, 2009 – BusinessWeek". Businessweek.com. 2009-11-09. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  30. ↑ Needleman, Rafe. "Live Mesh posts – Webware – CNET". News.cnet.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  31. ↑ "Hottest Silicon Valley Companies". Lead411.com. 2010-05-25. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  32. ↑ Aaron Levie (2010-11-07). "Building the Simple Enterprise". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  33. ↑ Guest Author (2010-07-25). "Enterprise Software Is Sexy Again". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  34. ↑ "Freemium for Sale: 6 Reasons You'd be Crazy Not to Give Your Software Out for Free: Web 2.0 Expo New York 2010 – Co-produced by TechWeb & O'Reilly Conferences, September 27 –". Web2expo.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27.
  35. ↑ "The Millionaire Matchmaker Season 3 – Episode 11 – Hillel and Dylan – Bravo TV Official Site". Bravotv.com. Retrieved 2013-06-27.

External links