Dropbox vs Box: how do their IPOs compare?

Dropbox was valued much higher than Box, and raised more money, but Box ended its first day up more

Earlier today, one of the most anticipated IPOs finally happened as Dropbox made its debut on the public market.

The company is doing well so far, closing its first day high above its IPO price, but there is one reason for the company to be slightly nervous: the performance of its closest competitor, Box.

Box went public in January of 2015, and has seen its stock struggle, closing as low as $9.5 a share in February 2016, though it has since bounced back, and is now trading at $20.89 a share, 49 percent above its $14 IPO price. In its most recent quarterly earnings, Box saw $136.7 million in revenue up 24 percent year-over-year. 

The question is whether Dropbox will have similar struggles as Box had in the coming years. Let's take a look at the numbers to see how the two companies were performing prior to their IPOs and what their first days looked like. 

Money raised prior to IPO: Dropbox raised nearly double the amount that Box had raised, even though they took nearly the same amount of time to go public, nearly 11 years for Dropbox versus 10 for Box.

• Box: $559 million
• Dropbox: $1.7 billion

Revenue year prior to IPO: The revenue the two companies had seen in the year before they went public is not even comparable, with Dropbox making nearly 10 times in 2017 the amount that Box did in 2014. The reason for this is that while Box has put its focus on the enterprise market, Dropbox has put its emphasis on being a consumer company, while also introducing tools for enterprise. As Box CEO Aaron Levie said in a recent interview, while Box's business model is more like Salesforce, Dropbox is more comparable to Netflix. 

• Box: $124.2 million
• Dropbox: $1.1 billion 

Net loss prior to IPO: While Dropbox's revenue was much higher, so was its net loss in , around 47 times higher in 2017 than Box's net loss in 2014. 

• Box: $2.4 million 
• Dropbox: $111.7 million

Pre-IPO Valuation: Box was valued at $2.4 billion valuation when the company raised a $150 million round in 2014, while Dropbox was valued five times more.

• Box: $2.4 billion
• Dropbox: $10 billion

P/R prior to IPO: Prior to its IPO, Box had a higher price to trailing revenue rate compared to Dropbox

• Box: 19.3x revenue
• Dropbox: 9x revenue

IPO price: Dropbox's IPO price was 50 percent higher than Box's.

• Box: $14
• Dropbox: $21

Amount raised in IPO: While Box sold 12.5 million shares, Dropbox sold 36 million shares, allowing it to raise more than four times what Box did in its IPO

• Box: $175 million 
• Dropbox: $756 million

Opening price: Box opened its first day of trading higher than Dropbox

• Box: $20.20, up 44 percent 
• Dropbox: $29, up 40 percent 

Closing price: Box's stock also closed its first day up a much higher percentage than Dropbox

• Box: $23.23, up 66 percent
• Dropbox: $28.48, up 35.62 percent

Post-IPO Valuation: Box ended its first day of trading with its valuation up 12 percent from its pre-IPO value, while Dropbox saw its value rise 20 percent 

• Box: $2.7 billion
• Dropbox: $12 billion

P/R after IPO: After its IPO, Box's P/R rate rose 13 percent, while Dropbox's rose 21.1 percent

• Box: 21.8x revenue
• Dropbox: 10.9x revenue

(Image source: blog.backupify.com)