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Aaron Levie Sold 25% of Box for $80,000. His Co-Founder Looked 11 Years Old.

By Aaron Levie · AI & Technology · 1 min read

Every VC rejected them. Mark Cuban invested $300K — without ever meeting them in person. Levie says that was the only way they could have gotten funded.

Key Points

Box's first round was $80,000 for 25% of the company
VCs and angel investors all rejected them because of Microsoft
Mark Cuban invested $300,000 without meeting them in person

Mark never met us in person. That was the only way we probably would have been able to get funding.

$80,000 for a Quarter of the Company

Levie: If anybody ever feels stressed out about fundraising — our first round of funding was $80,000. We gave away a fourth of the company. Welcome to 2005 fundraising.

The idea was: let's build a really simple way to share files from anywhere. That simple. We launched it as box.net.

Dylan Looked Like He Was 11

Levie: My co-founder and CFO Dylan — we had this massive disadvantage. He looked like he was 11 years old. He looked like we were going to go off to Disneyland with the proceeds.

We went to the VCs. We went to the angel investors. Everybody turned us down. They said we would never be able to compete with Microsoft.

My co-founder looked like he was 11 years old. He looked like we were going to go off to Disneyland with the proceeds.

Mark Cuban Never Met Them

Levie: We eventually got some local real estate investors to throw in some money. Then the big break was Mark Cuban. He invested about $300,000.

The lesson was — Mark never met us in person. That was the only way we probably would have been able to get funding. I don't know what lesson to take from that.

Mark never met us in person. That was the only way we probably would have been able to get funding.