Dropbox Is Buying Mega-Hyped Email Startup Mailbox
That was fast.
Storage-in-the-cloud company Dropbox is buying Orchestra, the startup that makes Mailbox, a very hyped email app that only came out in the past few weeks.
The WSJ's Jessica Lessin broke the news.
Orchestra only launched Mailbox, an email app for the iPhone, on February 7.
Even before its launch, Mailbox generated lots of interest thanks to a particularly well-made video previewing the app's functionality.
Orchestra set up a waiting list for users, and CEO Gentry Underwood says that eventually 1.3 million of them joined it.
Dropbox CEO Drew Houston told Lessin his company bought Orchestra because: "We felt we could help Mailbox reach a much different audience much faster."
In a blog post, Dropbox cofounders Houston and Arash Ferdowsi write: "Like many of you, when we discovered Mailbox we fell in love—it was simple, delightful, and beautifully engineered. Many have promised to help us with our overflowing inboxes, but the Mailbox team actually delivered."
Underwood told Lessin that Orchestra was about to start raising money from investors, and that the Dropbox deals made more sense.
“We didn’t think we would have much trouble doing that, but we would still have to build our own team in a very competitive talent market."
The acquisition is another long stride for Dropbox in its march on the Microsoft Office suite.
Several startups are positioning themselves for a similar run on the productivity market. Two other biggies are Box, likewise a storage product, and Evernote, which began life as a note-taking app, but encompasses much more.
Private investors recently valued Dropbox at more than $4 billion. Lessin says its up to 100 million users and 250 employees.
Here's the official blog post from Dropbox:
Today we’re really excited to welcome the Mailbox team to Dropbox.
Like many of you, when we discovered Mailbox we fell in love—it was simple, delightful, and beautifully engineered. Many have promised to help us with our overflowing inboxes, but the Mailbox team actually delivered.
After spending time with Gentry, Scott, and the team, it became clear that their calling was the same as ours at Dropbox—to solve life’s hidden problems and reimagine the things we do every day. We all quickly realized that together we could save millions of people a lot of pain.
Dropbox doesn’t replace your folders or your hard drive: it makes them better. The same is true with Mailbox, it doesn’t replace your email: it makes it better. Whether it’s your Dropbox or your Mailbox, we want to find ways to simplify your life.
We’re all looking forward to making Mailbox even better and getting it into as many people’s hands as possible. There’s so much to do and we’re excited to get started!