Data storage firm Box files for IPO

(Reuters) - Data storage company Box Inc filed with U.S. regulators on Monday to raise up to $250 million in an initial public offering of common stock.

The Los Altos, California-based company said Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, JPMorgan and BMO Capital Markets were among the underwriters for the IPO.

Box intends to list its Class A common stock on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "BOX."

Box CEO Aaron Levie

The company began as an academic project of CEO Aaron Levie, who launched it from his dorm room at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business in 2005. Box focuses on business customers, and says over 200,000 firms use its technology, including LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora (P) and Procter & Gamble (PG).

Key numbers:

• $124 million : That's the amount of revenue Box reports for the year ending January 31, 2014. It compares to around $59 million for fiscal 2012 and just $21 million for fiscal 2011.
• $169 million : That's how much Box lost last year. The only real upside is that its losses are growing at a lower rate than are its revenues increasing. For example, Box had a net loss of $112.5 million for fiscal 2012 and around $50 million for fiscal 2011. As for cost increases, Box more than doubled both R&D and sales & marketing expenses last year.
• 174,000 : That's Box's number of billings last year, compared to 85,700 the prior year.
• $109 million : That's how much cash Box has on hand. Guess that means it hasn't yet tapped any of the $100 million in Series F funding that it raised at the end of last year.
• 25.5% : That's the percentage of Box currently owned by venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which led the company's $1.5 million Series A round back in 2006. Other significant shareholders include U.S. Venture Partners (13%), General Atlantic (8.4%), Scale Venture Partners (7.4%), Bessemer Venture Partners (5.6%) and Meritech Capital Partners (5.1%).