How are they planning ever to make any profits? Their product was innovative some years ago but now they have a lot of competition so I'd expect their margins to get squeezed even more.

Those numbers are even more impressive given that 2 years ago they had $600m in revenues with a net loss of $300m

But it also means transfer of more equity from founders to investors, as investment terms these days typically include equity transfers if an IPO falls short of private valuations

Dropbox's numbers are in their S1 filing and Box's in their financials already linked. Are you questioning the legitimacy of these filings?

Does this mean that investors in their $10B round lost money? Is this common?

Rumor was they had a weird liquidation preferences in that round, which made it more like debt. Something like a 2x floor and 3x cap. Not sure how that resolves in an IPO though.

Not necessarily.

First, the "vs Box" valuation above is simplistic and may not be comparing apples to apples. They are competitors but they are not identical companies, so scaling valuation based on a couple of inputs fails to capture all of their dissimilarities. Also, there is no consideration for a relative spread between the two if you value Dropbox directly off Box (or in other words, which one trades over).

Second, the IPO is not always priced efficiently. Some executives might prefer to price lower just to see positive headlines about sustained gains after IPO. Others may counter that a low IPO price leaves money on the table.

You should wait to see where the stock trades after IPO and any significant lockup expiries before evaluating the success of investors in the $10bb round.

They likely have protection clauses.