Type of site Public Industry Technology Website www.box.com CEO Aaron Levie (2005–) | Traded as NYSE: BOX Employees 1400 (as of 2017) Customer service 00 1 650-329-1210 | |
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Key people Aaron Levie (CEO)
Dan Levin (COO, President)
Dylan Smith (CFO) Stock price BOX (NYSE) US$ 16.79 -1.47 (-8.05%)2 Mar, 4:02 PM GMT-5 - Disclaimer Headquarters Redwood City, California, United States Founders Aaron Levie, Dylan Smith, Sam Ghods, Jeff Queisser Profiles | ||
Box (formerly Box.net), based in Redwood City, California, is an online file sharing and content management service for businesses. The company uses a freemium business model to provide cloud storage and file hosting for personal accounts and businesses. Official clients and apps are available for Windows, macOS, and several mobile platforms. Box was founded in 2005.
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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. 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.
Box offers three account types: Enterprise, Business and Personal. There are official clients offered for Windows and OS X, but not for Linux. A mobile version of the service is available for Android, BlackBerry 10, iOS, WebOS, and Windows Phone devices.
Box's enterprise clients include IBM, GE, Schneider Electric, and Procter & Gamble.
In December 2007 the company announced OpenBox, which allows developers to create services that interact with files on both Box.com and competing web-based applications and services. The application programming interface is implemented over conventional XML.
History
Box was originally developed as a college project of Aaron Levie while he was a student of the University of Southern California in 2004. Levie left school to pursue the company full-time in 2005. Levie became CEO, while his childhood friend Dylan Smith became CFO.
In October 2009, Box made its first acquisition, buying Increo Solutions for its document collaboration and preview technology.
In July 2012, Box secured $125M in a funding round led by growth equity firm General Atlantic, joined by investors Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, New Enterprise Associates, SAP Ventures, Scale Venture Partners, and Social + Capital Partnership.
In December 2013, eight investors participated in a $100M series F funding round. Investors included Coatue Management, DFJ Growth, Itochu Technology Ventures, Macnica Networks Corp., Mitsui & Co, Telefónica Digital, Telstra, and Telstra Ventures.
In July 2014, Box received $150M from Coatue Management and TPG Capital in a series G funding round.
In November 2014, Box acquired two-man medical-imaging software startup MedXT for $3.84 million.
On January 23, 2015 Box held its initial public offering on the NYSE. The IPO price was $14.00. It opened at $20.20 and closed at $23.23. The IPO raised $175 million and established a market capitalization of about $1.6 billion.