
Report: Dropbox seeks new funding, valuing company at $8 billion - AhtiK
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/19/us-dropbox-funding-idUSBRE9AI01R20131119
======
ghshephard
"Dropbox, which is increasingly competing with Microsoft and Google as well as
fellow startup Box in the fast-growing field of cloud storage,"

This implicitly (if not explicitly) reverses the actuality, which is really:

"Dropbox, which is increasingly facing competition from Microsoft and Google
as well as fellow startup Box in the fast-growing field of cloud storage,"

They do a better job later on with, "Those features come at a time large
rivals like Microsoft and Amazon Inc are muscling into cloud-storage, a
strategic weapon in an era of widespread mobile computing."

~~~
jonathansizz
Since you're nitpicking, I'll just point out that both formulations actually
have the same meaning. There's nothing (not even an implication) in the first
quoted sentence that suggests that Dropbox is younger than its competitors.

'Competing with' and 'facing competition from' are exact equivalents.

~~~
venomsnake
I read "facing competition from" as being the incumbent and getting a
challenge.

And "Competing with" all are on equal basis.

~~~
codex
Do you have any numbers to suggest that Dropbox usage is higher than Google or
Microsoft or iCloud?

~~~
venomsnake
No ... I was just commenting on the linguistic part whether the two phrases
mean the same. I moderately don't give a frak about the services due to my
irrational, passionate and relentless hatred for everything cloud related. (I
love the underlying technologies, I just hate the feudal model of a foreign
service holding your data hostage)

------
shocks
Every time I see Dropbox on the front page of HN I think about this[1] all
over again…

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

~~~
dcarmo
"The only problem is that you have to install something."

~~~
twic
Eh. I don't use Dropbox, in part because of exactly that. I passed over
Spotify for the same reason. Given feature parity, I will choose a browser-
based solution over one that requires me to install some random binary blob
every time.

~~~
buttsex
Spotify has since come out with a web player [1] if you are still interested.

[1] [https://play.spotify.com/](https://play.spotify.com/)

~~~
thejosh
Neat, but I hope they don't drop their Linux client, it really is nice.

------
brador
The problem I see is dropbox as a service becoming a commodity as competition
in the sector ramps up. Apple is making a big push on cloud with airdrop and
icloud, Tencent is offering 10tb storage.

It's heating up and it's gonna be hard to maintain a viable USP.

~~~
w1ntermute
I don't think this is true at all. There are huge network effects because of
folder sharing. I've gotten at least a dozen people to sign up for Dropbox
over the years this way. It was tough at first, but the adoption rate is
sufficiently high now that in a group of 5, there may be only one person who
hasn't got an account already. And when they're the odd one out, the peer
pressure to sign up is so great that it forces even the latest of late
adopters to give in.

Apple is irrelevant because they're not cross platform, and no one will trust
their data to a Chinese company, particularly the businesses that actually pay
for Dropbox.

~~~
franstereo
I agree there are big network effects to sharing folders and that is a big
push to sign up. Paying is a different story however. If you are a casual non-
business user, sharing photos or the occasional document (e.g., Grandparent
use case) then even the annoying space restrictions won't move you to pay.

------
NLPsajeeth
"Dropbox tallied $116 million in sales last year, more than doubling its $46
million in revenue in 2011. The year before, it nearly quadrupled sales from
$12 million."

[http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303...](http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702303985504579206763922615986-lMyQjAxMTAzMDEwOTExNDkyWj)

~~~
chii
i m flabbergasted at the amount of money there is in this service (and related
ones) - is it really that useful? I had a dropbox account since the early
days, and i have hardly put any use into it.

What do people actually use it for? Share files? Backup solution?

~~~
stblack
Dropbox has been a game-changer for me.

Maybe your interactions with technical people are different, or you don't
share much between computers and devices?

Here's what's changed for me:

* 1:1 collaborations with people

* m:m collaborations within groups

* Me and my web servers are so, SO in sync :-)

* Sharing downloadable links to files and folders with people.

* Also: photo sharing because sharing a link to a folder of photos auto-galleries it.

------
jwr
Will the use the funds raised to finally optimize their CPU-hungry client, so
that it doesn't cut my battery life by 30%?

I'm worried about Dropbox. Worried that they concentrate on adding features
(photo syncing?) instead of caring about their loyal paying business
customers, who mostly want the software to Just Work and Work Well.

~~~
krrrh
The dropbox client only uses a fraction of the CPU of every other cloud
syncing client I've tried, and even most simple menubar utilities. Do you know
of one that uses less CPU? I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
shin_lao
BitTorrent Sync is more lightweight.

~~~
krrrh
Really? With both sitting idle on Mavericks right now, BitTorrent Sync is
using 1.4% of CPU, Dropbox 0.1. Energy Impact 4.1, and 0.1 respectively. And
BTSync is managing 5MB with no more than 3 peers, while Dropbox is keeping
eyes over 36GB. That's pretty consistent with what I've always seen from them.
Maybe the windows client is better optimized?

I wish this wasn't the case because I would love to switch to something free
and distributed, as it is I disable BTSync unless I'm plugged in.

------
uptown
Recently, more of my software has added Dropbox as an option for synchronizing
its data between devices - but I'm hesitant to do so. It seems like Dropbox
lacks the necessary access-control granularity. If your FTP client, and a chat
program, and a password manager all decide they need read/write access to your
dropbox, doesn't that open up attack-vectors across completely unrelated
applications and services in ways that previously may have been isolated and
sandboxed?

------
hemancuso
I'm curious to know what the plans are to keep driving revenue. Obviously very
impressive numbers, but it looks like YoY top line growth looks slow: less
than 100% [$116->$200M+]. It leaves one scratching their head as to how
Dropbox gets to something like $1B/year under its current business model and
later justify something like a 20B public market cap. That would take a
something billion users with roughly the same conversion rate. They would need
the same base of users as Facebook, but with a huge percentage of them
actually paying money, while facing intense competition by players who
demonstrate they are willing to lose billions of dollars a year to compete in
new markets.

One obvious answer is Dropbox for businesses, but it remains to be seen how
well they actually compete in that space. Fined tunes permissions/controls.
Integrations. Enterprisey things. They all become more necessary at higher
price points. I wonder if Box is in a position to improve their existing sync
client faster than Dropbox is to add all those features/controls yet keep
their core simplicity.

~~~
slouch
I haven't started paying, yet. Last year, I bought an HTC phone that gave me a
bunch of space (20 gigs?) free for two years. I have 27.5gb and I am using
5.75 of it today. My account will either drop back down to 7.5 or I'll start
paying to keep it. At my current rate of usage, I'll certainly be using some
of the free space by then.

------
kriro
Seems a bit like setting an anchor for a buyout. I have a feeling a 4 billion
offer by Google/MS/Amazon would be accepted very quickly even if it was very
little cash/all stock.

Maybe my sense is very wrong but it seems like a decent time to get bought out
timing wise.

~~~
rubberband
Google or Microsoft won't buy them. They're hedging their bet that this
technology will be a commodity soon (Google Drive and SkyDrive). It doesn't
really fit in Amazon's universe. They already told Apple to screw (albeit only
at 800M). I think that Drew is a True Believer, where he thinks there is
tremendous growth potential in this space. And hell, anything's possible. Who
would have thought that such a simple idea, done extremely well, would have
such potential.

~~~
will_work4tears
Not sure if you are aware of it, but Amazon has a share in this space too,
Amazon Cloud Drive[1]

[1]-
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=cd_def/186-4662895...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=cd_def/186-4662895-8664732?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&docId=1000828861)

~~~
rubberband
Aah you're correct; I had forgotten about that. I suppose syncing all
someone's Amazon-related files makes sense in a way. Kindle, MP3 purchases,
etc. I may be wrong, but I don't think Dropbox has a technology which is
Earth-shatteringly better than than its competitors, although I agree it is
the best in the space. And heck, if Amazon bought them, they'd lose all that
sweet sweet revenue from Dropbox ^_^.

------
shin_lao
That's a lot of money! Do they seek it because they can or because they need
it?

------
julesie
During the Dublin Web Summit (two weeks ago) Drew Heuston stated that Dropbox
hadn't touched the previous funds they had raised. I wonder why the need to
raise the money at this point?

~~~
venomsnake
A) Some real expansion B) You generate insane amounts of free marketing and
get a check at the end.

------
adamio
You can value it at $8 billion, but that doesn't rule out that someone just
overpaid for it. They did get a great deal on advertising

------
driverdan
Why? Because they can get it at a favorable valuation?

~~~
leokun
Yeah, it's like leaving money on the table I suppose.

