Dive Brief:

• Dropbox is saving money and allowing for more flexibility by leveraging its own home-built infrastructure rather than relying on external providers, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston said at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference this week. 
• The company announced in March that it had transferred about 90% of its IT infrastructure away from Amazon Web Services to rely on its own infrastructure. 
• Houston said Dropbox needs a unique solution because of the amount of data it handles.

Dive Insight:

While most companies are farming out their infrastructure, Dropbox maintains that keeping infrastructure resources in-house is the best solution for its unique needs. The company relies primarily on its custom-built, internal cloud network. 

"It’s a big bet we placed," Houston said during the conference. "We went from zero to standing up one of the largest cloud infrastructures in the world."

Dropbox continues to grow, though it is not yet profitable. Houston said the company is close to reaching 200,000 paying business customers. In March, the company said that number was about 150,000.

Houston said last month that he was renewing his focus on business fundamentals and profitability. Recently, the company has worked to expand its market share, leveraging relationships with large businesses to help boost its exposure.