Dropbox Looking to Fuel Rocket With $250 Million Investment and Staggering $8 Billion Valuation

Drew Houston - Dropbox CEOYesterday we witnessed the way scientists are simulating bursting bubbles on supercomputers, but no one could of predicted the latest move by Dropbox looking to burst the dot-com bubble for good instead. Dropbox is reportedly raising funds that would give the online cloud storage service a valuation north of $8 billion according to Businessweek.

Have you ever noticed that after a successful company starts raising funds privately, investors break out even bigger checks during the next round? Not to be undone from its last financing splurge that closed in 2011, Dropbox aims to raise more than double its previous round this time with over $250 million worth to be sold in the next few weeks.

Dropbox and its CEO have always had a flair for the dramatic. While the service is known to operate in the cloud, CEO and co-founder Drew Houston is known for giving several Cloud 9-type performances, some of which can be streamed on YouTube including one of him belching out “Rocket Man” with a pint in hand at a Swiss bar. The company’s San Francisco-based confines are also lavishly equipped with swings that dangle from the ceiling, a full bar and recording studio!

Even more dramatic, though, Dropbox has over 200 million users, 10 times its 2010 figures and 4 million businesses using its service. Its revenue has also grown 20 fold since late 2010 into the hundreds of millions of dollars range. So with all this going for it, it’s not surprising that investors appear willing to drop even more cash into Dropbox’s donation box.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston

So how long do you think before Dropbox makes all these private investors even more boat loads of cash after going public? Unlike the “Rocket Man’s” prognosis, I don’t think it’s going to be that long of a time!
 
Image by Dan Farber / CNET

Daniel Zeevi

By Daniel Zeevi

Daniel is a social network architect, web developer, infographic designer, writer, speaker and founder of DashBurst. Full-time futurist and part-time content curator, always on the hunt for disruptive new technology, creative art and web humor.