知情人士上周五表示，數據共享公司Dropbox Inc正打算聘請首次公開募股（IPO）的承銷商，可能今年下半年上市。如果順利，可能會成為Snap Inc.上市以來美國最大規(guī)模的科技股IPO。

2014年的一輪私募融資后，Dropbox的估值曾接近100億美元。本次IPO將成為公司價值的重要檢驗。

消息人士表示，未來幾周Dropbox將考察一些投行。因該消息尚未公開，相關人士要求匿名。

Dropbox公司拒絕就此置評。

最近幾個月，Uber Technologies Inc.和Airbnb Inc.等多家美國大牌科技公司都選擇了暫不公開上市。他們擔心，股市投資者比私募投資者更看重盈利水平，估值會比較低。

今年稍早，由于投資者擔心其商業(yè)模式存在不確定性，人氣社交應用Snapchat的開發(fā)商Snap被迫調降了IPO估值預期。上市后，Snap的股價一直徘徊在略高于IPO發(fā)行價的水平，主要因為公司虧損擴大，盈利又遜于分析師預期，很難令投資者滿意。目前Snap的市值為210億美元。

不過，許多私營公司還是有上市壓力，因為投資人需要套現退出的渠道。

湯森路透數據顯示，2015年，科技業(yè)IPO規(guī)模由2014年的340億美元降至67億美元，2016年進一步縮水，僅有29億美元。

Dropbox的主要競爭對手Box Inc.于2015年上市，估值約為16.7億美元，而IPO之前私募融資時估值為24億美元。

位于舊金山的Dropbox成立于2007年，創(chuàng)始人是兩位麻省理工學院畢業(yè)生德魯·豪斯頓和阿萊?！し茽柖辔鳌ＶL投公司紅杉資本、T. Rowe Price和Greylock Partners都曾投資。

Dropbox最初為客戶提供分享與存儲照片、音樂和其他大文件的免費服務。不過隨著谷歌的母公司Alphabet、微軟和亞馬遜都開始提供免費的存儲空間，這項業(yè)務已經商業(yè)化。

自那以后，Dropbox開始將業(yè)務重心轉向企業(yè)客戶。Dropbox的首席執(zhí)行官豪斯頓表示，公司今年營業(yè)收入有望超過10億美元。

此前Dropbox主要按使用服務的員工人數向企業(yè)客戶收費，今年業(yè)務范圍進一步擴大。今年1月該公司推出了數據備份軟件Smart Sync，電腦中的文件不管存在云還是本地硬盤，用戶都能方便地查看使用。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審稿：夏林

Data-sharing business Dropbox Inc is seeking to hire underwriters for an initial public offering that could come later this year, which would make it the biggest U.S. technology company to go public since Snap Inc, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

The IPO will be a key test of Dropbox 's worth after it was valued at almost $10 billion in a private fundraising round in 2014.

Dropbox will begin interviewing investment banks in the coming weeks, the sources said, asking not to be named because the deliberations are private.

Dropbox declined to comment.

Several big U.S. technology companies such as Uber Technologies Inc and Airbnb Inc have resisted going public in recent months, concerned that stock market investors, who focus more on profitability than do private investors, would assign lower valuations to them.

Snap, owner of the popular messaging app Snapchat, was forced to lower its IPO valuation expectations earlier this year amid investor concern over its unproven business model. Its shares have since lingered just above the IPO price, with investors troubled by widening losses and missed analyst estimates. It has a market capitalization of $21 billion.

Still, for many private companies, there is increasing pressure to go pubic as investors look to cash out.

Proceeds from technology IPOs slumped to $6.7 billion in 2015 from $34 billion in 2014, and shrunk further to $2.9 billion in 2016, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Dropbox 's main competitor, Box Inc, was valued at roughly $1.67 billion in its IPO in 2015, less than the $2.4 billion it had been valued at in previous private fundraising rounds.

San Francisco-based Dropbox , which was founded in 2007 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, counts Sequoia Capital, T. Rowe Price and Greylock Partners as investors.

Dropbox started as a free service for consumers to share and store photos, music and other large files. That business became commoditized though, as Alphabet Inc's Google, Microsoft Corp and Amazon.com Inc started offering storage for free.

Dropbox has since pivoted to focus on winning business clients, and Houston, the company's CEO, has said that Dropbox is on track to generate more than $1 billion in revenue this year.

The company has expanded its Dropbox Business that requires companies to pay a fee based on the number of employees who use it. The service in January began offering Smart Sync, which allows users to see and access all of their files, whether stored in the cloud or on a local hard drive, from their desktop.