Disrupt alumnus Dropbox made the second in a series of super-savvy, super-early stage acquisitions today, picking up hyped-up email management app Mailbox in an acquisition that we’re calling “DropMail.”
We had been hearing that Mailbox was raising money, piquing the interest of Andreessen Horowitz among others, which is why today’s news that the company sold to the harmoniously named Dropbox didn’t come as a surprise. Sometimes an acquisition is the easiest way to raise resources for growth — especially when you’re tackling as expensive a problem as email. And have a six-figure wait list.
And we’re hearing that this particular acquisition was not cheap — The post-pivot startup cost the storage company “well over” $50 million, according to multiple sources. And we’ve heard that that the price was around $100 million in cash and stock.
Yahoo had also made inroads with the email platform, founded by IDEO veteran Gentry Underwood, which makes sense considering the brand decline of Yahoo Mail as well as the latter company’s dismal mobile traction. But Dropbox’s allure and sympatico vision made more sense for the fledgling startup, whose impressive numbers gave co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi the courage to take a swing at email.
In any case, we can probably expect to see Dropbox handling email attachments real soon.
Alexia Tsotsis is a big nerd who is working on something under the radar. Before this she was at business school and before that she was at TechCrunch.
Leena Rao is currently a Senior Writer at Fortune Magazine.
Leena had a brief stint at Google Ventures as an Operating Partner.
Leena’s first role out of journalism school was at TechCrunch which she joined in 2008. She rose through the ranks becoming the Managing Editor for TechCrunch and a voice at TechCrunch Disrupt.
She recently finished graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where she studied business journalism and videography. From 2004 to 2007, she helped lead Congresswoman Carloyn Maloney’s community outreach and relations efforts in New York City.
She graduated from Columbia University in 2003, where she was the captain of the women’s varsity tennis team. She has also contributed technology content for Oprah.com.