Dropbox Shares Leap in I.P.O., and Silicon Valley Smiles<br />But the strong reception for Dropbox, which sells subscriptions to software<br />that lets users collaborate and share files online, suggests that the public markets remain willing to offer a crucial exit point for early-stage investors in the largest private Silicon Valley start-ups, even amid broader concerns about large tech companies.<br />And venture capital money meant that highly valued start-ups — “unicorns,” in Silicon Valley parlance<br />— were able to remain private for longer without turning to the public markets for fund-raising.<br />By MATT PHILLIPSMARCH 23, 2018<br />Dropbox, the file-sharing company and Silicon Valley darling, had a strong market debut Friday, a reassuring sign for the technology industry<br />and for the investors who have billions locked up in other highly valued but privately held start-ups.<br />Between 2006 and 2016, the last year with available data, economic output in the metropolitan area<br />that roughly corresponds to Silicon Valley rose more than 5 percent a year, while the average growth rate in American metro areas was 1.2 percent.<br />Given the huge values attached to those companies — Uber alone is valued at roughly $68 billion<br />— access to the capital available in public markets has become all the more important.<br />window, despite a week of incredible volatility and distraction about global trade,” said Bryan Schreier, a Dropbox board member<br />and partner at Sequoia Capital, the large venture capital firm that was one of Dropbox’s early investors.
