Dropbox has priced shares in its initial public offering at $21, opening the door to the file sharing company’s stock to start trading on Nasdaq on Friday.
The IPO, which values Dropbox at $9.2 billion, is among the most highly anticipated in the tech industry since Snapchat’s last year. But it also marks a bit of a disappointment considering that the company had been valued at $10 billion in a private investment in 2014.
Still, investor appetite for Dropbox’s IPO was strong. The final share price slightly exceeded the expected range of $18 to $20, which itself was increased from the original range of $16 to $18 set by the company last week before its investor road show started.
Dropbox raised $756 million in its IPO, on top of $100 million that business software firm Salesforce invested in the company in a private placement before the IPO.
Dropbox, founded in 2007 by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, caught a lot of early buzz as a service where consumers could store their files for free. But it took time for the business to attract paying customers—it has 11 million paying subscribers among its 500 million registered users—amid stiff competition from bigger rivals like Google and smaller rival Box.
Like many tech companies to IPO, Dropbox has also struggled to turn a profit. Last year, it lost $112 million on $1.1 billion in sales.
