Dropbox plans Tigris acquisition to expand AI infrastructure business

Traders Union
All News
Business & Wealth
Companies
Dropbox Tigris AI acquisition

Highlights

Dropbox announced plans to acquire Tigris Data for $350 million, marking its largest acquisition to date and accelerating expansion into AI infrastructure.
The Tigris deal specifically targets developers needing scalable storage for distributed AI workloads, supporting Dropbox's shift from file-sharing to AI application infrastructure.
Dropbox is launching DBX Agent Cloud for large dataset storage to serve AI applications and boosting AI features in core products to drive developer adoption and retention.

Deal adds storage platform for AI workloads

As reported by Crunchbase News, Dropbox announced Thursday that it plans to acquire Tigris Data for $350 million, in what the company says is its biggest acquisition to date. Tigris, based in Sunnyvale, California, is building a network of localized data storage centers designed to support the distributed computing demands of modern AI workloads.

Founded in 2021 by former Uber engineers, Tigris has raised about $31.9 million, according to Crunchbase data. Its October 2025 Series A raised $25 million from lead investor Spark Capital, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz and Basis Set Ventures, while earlier backers include General Catalyst.

The planned purchase gives Dropbox a storage platform aimed at developers whose applications operate across multiple cloud providers. Dropbox is also launching DBX Agent Cloud, which initially offers standalone object storage for large data sets such as images, video and files used to train and run AI models.

Eric Webster, Dropbox’s chief business officer, said the combination of a production-ready product, an experienced team and existing relationships with AI developers would speed the company’s entry into infrastructure for AI applications through DBX Agent Cloud.

AI expansion reshapes Dropbox growth strategy

For Dropbox, the Tigris deal supports a broader strategy shift as the San Francisco-based company expands from its traditional file-sharing business into selling infrastructure used to build AI applications. The move also targets a different customer base from the individuals and businesses that use its core software products.

Dropbox has made 35 known acquisitions, according to Crunchbase, with most of that activity concentrated in its earlier years. Between 2012 and 2015, it completed 23 publicly reported acquisitions, including nine in 2014 alone, while it made four acquisitions across 2024 and 2025.

Recent deals point to a focus on AI-powered productivity, search and security, including Reclaim.ai and Nira in 2024, followed by Promoted.ai and Mobius Labs in 2025. Although the planned Tigris acquisition is its largest, Dropbox has previously completed sizable purchases including HelloSign for $230 million in 2019, DocSend for $165 million in 2021 and FormSwift for $95 million in 2022.

Alongside infrastructure, Dropbox is also adding AI functions to its existing file-sharing platform. Webster said customers can use AI to find, understand, create, edit and organize content in Dropbox, switch between supported AI models, and work with Dropbox files in tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, with results returning to Dropbox.

For developers and companies, DBX Agent Cloud extends Dropbox’s storage capabilities into the systems behind AI applications and agents. Webster said the new offering opens a developer and infrastructure market for Dropbox, while AI features inside Dropbox are intended to deepen engagement, retention and expansion among existing customers.

Our earlier article on the mounting pressures on U.S. AI data centers highlighted how rising financing costs, construction delays, and power constraints are slowing the buildout of new capacity. We noted that only a minority of planned projects are viewed as realistic, with investor confidence increasingly tied to whether developers can deliver on time and within budget.

This material may contain third-party opinions, none of the data and information on this webpage constitutes investment advice according to our Disclaimer. While we adhere to strict Editorial Integrity, this post may contain references to products from our partners.