IDG News Service-Box has received$125 million in funding,an infusion the company will use to boost its international expansion and strengthen its cloud-hosted enterprise collaboration,storage,file-sharing and content management software.
The investment round was led by General Atlantic(GA),a late-stage private equity firm that shelled out$100 million and will gain a seat on Box's board of directors.
Occupying that seat will be Gary Reiner,a GA operating partner and former General Electric CIO and senior vice president.
"He's a significant addition to our board of directors,"said Box CEO Aaron Levie."He brings depth of experience in enterprise software and in the challenges that companies of GE's scale face in their IT strategies."
With this money injection,plans for an IPO aren't on the agenda."The benefit of a funding round of this size is that it puts us in a capital position where we don't have to go public in the near future,"Levie said.
Box has so far raised$287 million in funding.In the first half of this year,sales to enterprises grew 200%,compared with the same period in 2011,according to the company.
Box,which is based in Los Altos,California,will use the money in this latest funding round in part for its international expansion,which it formally launched last month when it opened an office in London.
In addition to building sales and professional services teams to serve Europe,Box is also localizing its site and plans to soon deploy IT infrastructure improvements to boost the performance of its application outside of the U.S.
Box's application is used by about 120,000 businesses worldwide,including 92%of the Fortune 500.Clients include Procter&Gamble,Random House,Dell,ESPN and McAfee.
Last week,Box announced an application to access its software from Windows Phone 7.5 devices,as well as a partnership with Qualcomm in which the chip maker will recommend to its device manufacturer clients that they pre-load the Box application in their Android tablets and smartphones.
