Dive Brief:

• Dropbox is reportedly in talks with advisors about a potential IPO, according to Bloomberg sources.
• The conversations were purely exploratory, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.
• Dropbox Chief Executive Officer Drew Houston had previously said the company had no plans to go public.

Dive Insight:

Though Dropbox is not yet profitable, CEO Drew Houston recently said the company is free-cash-flow positive, which captures how much cash a business has left over after paying for capital expenditures. 

Houston, speaking at the Bloomberg Technology Conference in June, said he plans to focus on business fundamentals and profitability, according to a Fortune report. The file sharing company was valued at $10 billion two years ago, but many say it and several other tech start-ups have greatly inflated valuations. 

In March, Dropbox announced it now has 500 million users globally. Of those, about 8 million of its users are businesses, though only about 150,000 of those are paying customers. The company did not say how many paying users it has in total. 

This year has been the slowest for technology IPOs since the recession, according to Bloomberg, but that appears to be changing. Earlier this month, solution provider Presidio said it was considering a potential IPO, according to a CRN report. Big Data integration software company Talend went public in late July, and cloud company Twilio did so just before that in late June. The back-to-back IPOs may signal some long-anticipated momentum for up-and-coming tech companies.