Data Storage Firm Box Files for IPO of About $250M

Data storage provider Box Inc filed with U.S. regulators on Monday to raise about $250 million in an initial public offering of common stock, taking the lead over larger rival Dropbox as a new breed of cloud-based companies lift the IPO market.

The highly anticipated IPO follows debuts such as Twitter Inc and King Digital Entertainment Plc, the maker of mobile phone game "Candy Crush Saga" which is expected to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange this week.

Box, whose full-year loss widened even as revenue doubled, helps companies manage and store data remotely and online as more corporations look to shed costly data centers and as workers increasingly rely on mobile devices.

Box's earliest venture backer, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, owns about 25.5 percent of the company. US Venture Partners, which announced its first Box investement in 2008, is the second-largest shareholder with a 13 percent stake.

Aaron Levie and Dylan Smith, co-founders of Box, hold about 4.1 percent and 1.8 percent respectively.

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

The filing did not reveal how many shares the company planned to sell or their expected price. (http://r.reuters.com/jaj87v)

Net proceeds from the offering would be used for general corporate purposes, including working capital, operating expenses and capital expenditures, Box said in a regulatory filing.

Box said net loss attributable to common stockholders widened to $168.9 million for the year ended Jan. 31, from $112.79 million, a year earlier. Revenue, however, rose to $124.19 million from $58.8 million.

"We have a history of cumulative losses, and we do not expect to be profitable for the foreseeable future," Box said in the filing.

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

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

(Reporting by Avik Das in Bangalore; Editing by Don Sebastian)