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"The product needs to grow fast, and we believe that joining Dropbox is the best way to make that happen. " Why not do a funding round?

• anthemcg 14y ago
  Seems like Dropbox is ideally suited to do it from a financial and a technology stand-point.
• arindone 14y ago
  Well look at the alternatives: (1) join dropbox, probably for a pretty penny with stock options that will probably look very nice when Dropbox goes public -- fuel further growth and integration with Dropbox with even more significant resources at your disposal (including HIRING really good engineers a la "come work for Dropbox!") (2) stay as a high-risk start-up with no revenue, no tested plans of monetization with huge problems of scale (due to its rapid growth) and create a funding round which liquidates your ownership stake significantly, puts you @ the mercy of some risk averse VC's and limits your exit options (depending upon valuation) I love the product, but I have to admit this (1) would be my choice as well
• aaronbrethorst 14y ago
  They did in November 2011. $5 million round: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/orchestra http://www.crunchbase.com/company/orchestra
• joncooper 14y ago
  As opposed to a funding round, this approach is advantageous: Financially -- - Cash out the existing (presumably closely-held) equity holders with 100% of deal proceeds. "Existentially" -- Reduce execution risk by getting the team access to: - Existing battle-tested deployment infrastructure (& devops) - Existing pool of engineers that can be assigned to the project, and who are familiar with the infrastructure - HR, facilities, logistics, support, etc...