AAA Box to raise $175m from long-awaited IPO

Box to raise $175m from long-awaited IPO

Box, a US-based cloud collaboration platform developer backed by several corporates, priced its initial public offering at $14.00 a share yesterday and will raise $175m when it floats later today.

The IPO price, which values Box at about $1.67bn, is higher than the $11 to $13 range set earlier this month.

Box has raised about $595m in equity funding since it was founded in 2005, and its investors include semiconductor maker Intel, software producers SAP (which has Sapphire Ventures as its venture firm manager) and Salesforce.com, conglomerates Mitsui and Itochu, electronics manufacturer Macnica, and telecommunications companies Telstra and Telefónica, though none of the corporates have a stake sized at 5% or higher.

Draper Fisher Jurvetson is Box’s largest shareholder, with a 21.5% stake that will be diluted to 19.2% through the offering.

Other notable shareholders include U.S. Venture Partners, which will maintain a 9.8% stake after the IPO, Coatue Management (8.3%), General Atlantic (7%), TPG Global (5.8%) and Scale Venture Partners (5.6%).

Box operates a cloud-based content management and collaboration service. At least 50% of the proceeds from the offering will support sales and marketing, product development, general and administrative matters and capital expenditures.

The company will issue 12.5 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO’s underwriters have the option to buy almost 1.9 million more shares, which would increase the size of the offering to approximately $201.3m.

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and J.P. Morgan are the joint book-running managers for the IPO, the lead manager is BMO Capital Markets and Canaccord Genuity, Pacific Crest, Raymond James and Wells Fargo are serving as co-managers.

Box first filed for an IPO in March 2014, only for it to be delayed as the year progressed. The company’s revenue increased year on year from $85.4m to $153.8m in the first nine months of 2014, while its net loss narrowed slightly from $125.2m to $121.5m.

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