Cloud storage company Box, backed by the corporate venturing unit of Germany based software company SAP and US-based software company Salesforce, has raised $125m of Series E funding led by General Atlantic.
Private equity firm General Atlantic provided $100m of the investment, and the deal will also see General Atlantic operating partner and former chief information officer of US-based conglomerate General Electric join Box’s board. GA was joined in participation by venture fund Social+Capital Parnership and current Box investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ), New Enterprise Associates (NEA), SAP Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. The investment will support Box’s growing global expansion and technological innovation.
The deal saw Box’s total funding raise rise to $284m, with the round raised at a $1.2bn valuation, according to news provider Business Insider.
Box’s previous Series D round for $48m was led by Meritech Capital Partners, and included venture firms DFJ, Scale Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, US Venture Partners (USVP) and Emergence Capital Partners in February 2011.
The Series D investment was subsequently followed by an expansion round for $81m in October 2011 led by Salesforce.com and joined by SAP, venture firms Bessemer, NEA, and prior investors Andreessen Horowitz and DFJ.
In April 2010, Box completed their Series C round for $15m, led by Scale Venture Partners and joined by USVP and DFJ. Series B took place in January ’08 led by USVP with participation by DFJ for $6m, and saw a subsequent venture round by the same investors in October ’09 for $7.1m. DFJ led Box’s Series A round in October 2006, and was the sole investor.
“The confluence of cloud, mobile and social technology is transforming how every enterprise and individual manages information today,” said Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO Box in a statement.
He added: “This new funding allows us to invest aggressively in the talent, technology and global expansion efforts required for Box to sit at the center of this shift and define the next generation of enterprise software.”
Box provides cloud-based storage solutions primarily to a corporate audience. The “Battle for the Clouds” has heated up significantly in recent months, with Google’s Drive joining an already hotly contested tech sector that includes Box, Dropbox, Microsoft’s Skydrive, and Apple’s iCloud.