Dropbox buys Tigris Data for $350M in biggest-ever deal

The latest:

Dropbox is paying $350 million for Tigris Data, a cloud storage company founded by former Uber engineers, in what appears to be the file-sharing firm’s biggest acquisition ever. Announced Thursday, the deal is meant to power DBX Agent Cloud, a storage platform aimed at businesses and developers building AI models and agents. Dropbox said it expects the transaction to close in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Details:

• The target: Tigris Data was founded by former Uber engineers who helped build the ride-hailing company’s storage infrastructure. Its platform automatically positions data closer to the users and computing resources that need it, cutting access times and improving performance across regions. Tigris raised $25 million in a Series A round last year.
• The product: DBX Agent Cloud will initially sell object storage as a stand-alone product, letting businesses buy storage separately and run it with existing tools built for Amazon S3, the cloud service companies use to store and retrieve large volumes of data. That puts Dropbox in direct competition with the market’s default option.
• On headcount: Dropbox told TechCrunch it currently has no plans to cut jobs as part of the acquisition. The assurance follows a round of layoffs last month in which the company eliminated 9% of its global workforce, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• The roadmap: Dropbox plans to extend DBX Agent Cloud with capabilities for handling documents, images, audio, and video. Also planned are filesystem features that would let AI agents manage files and hold continuity across tasks and sessions. The company did not attach dates to those additions.
• Core product: Users of the main Dropbox service will be able to ask AI to perform supported tasks using their files, pick between different AI models, and connect their stored content to third-party tools including ChatGPT, Claude, and Muse.
• The rollout: Dropbox says the updated experience has already reached more than 70,000 teams. The initial release covers eligible Standard and Advanced customers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia, with broader availability planned for 2027.
• Deal history: Tigris is not Dropbox’s first AI purchase. The company has previously bought Reclaim.ai, Promoted.ai, and Mobius Labs, though none approached the scale of the $350 million outlay announced Thursday.
• Price context: The $350 million price tag is 14 times the $25 million Tigris raised in its Series A last year. Dropbox did not break out how the purchase price is structured or disclose any retention terms for the Tigris team.

Background:

Dropbox built its business on consumer and team file sync and sharing, a market where growth has slowed as storage became commoditized. Recent acquisitions of Reclaim.ai, Promoted.ai, and Mobius Labs pushed the company toward AI features layered on its core product rather than infrastructure sold on its own.

Between the lines:

Selling object storage as a stand-alone product compatible with Amazon S3 tools is a different business from file sharing: it targets developers who buy capacity, not teams who buy seats. The 9% workforce cut last month and a $350 million purchase in the same quarter point to capital being redirected rather than simply added, with the AI infrastructure layer treated as the growth line.

What’s next

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Watch for broader DBX Agent Cloud availability in 2027 beyond the US, UK, and Australia, and for Dropbox pricing disclosures on stand-alone object storage.