IT Automation and Monitoring Company Progress announced Monday its intention to acquire a file management platform ShareFile for $875 million in cash and credit.
Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta said the deal, which is expected to close by November 30, will strengthen Progress’ portfolio with tools to help businesses share and collaborate on documents more effectively.
“Companies today must improve their effectiveness in serving their customers while continuously streamlining operations to increase efficiency, security and compliance,” Gupta said in a statement. “ShareFile customers will benefit from Progress’ strong customer focus, broad product portfolio and expertise, and an unmatched track record of customer success.”
ShareFile, headquartered in Raleigh, was founded in 2005 by Jesse Lipson, a self-taught programmer. Lipson, who at the time ran a web design consulting business, created ShareFile after several clients asked him to create a web tool they could use to create folders and exchange files with their clients.
Without outside funding or a free offering, ShareFile reached 3 million users in 2011. The service would grow to 40 million users after its acquisition by Citrix in 2011; Citrix continued to offer ShareFile as a standalone service as well as an integration for several of its enterprise-oriented products.
Lipson, who joined Citrix’s leadership team after the acquisition, left in 2017. And in 2023, Cloud Software Group, a holding company owned by Citrix and data integration vendor Tibco, bought ShareFile for an undisclosed sum.
Today, ShareFile offers a range of file-sharing tools and services for businesses, including a service that lets customers create personalized, password-protected file portals (similar in functionality to Dropbox and Box). The company also provides e-signature services, regulatory-compliant clouds for medical and financial documents, and a service that lets customers stream data from their on-premises data centers.
Thomas Krause, CEO of Cloud Software Group, estimates that ShareFile will be very profitable for Progress, adding up to $240 million in annual recurring revenue to its balance sheet and 86,000 customers to its customer base.
The market for enterprise file sharing services is indeed lucrative, according to analyst firm Grand View Research. estimate that it will be worth $9.5 billion by 2023. ShareFile was not among the top services in terms of usage last year – Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, Box and Jupyter beat it, according to Statesman — but given the massive size of the industry, even a small slice of it can generate significant revenue.
“ShareFile has a long track record of success in secure content collaboration and customer engagement, and through this transaction, as part of Progress, we will be better positioned to continue that momentum over the long term,” Krause said in a press release. “For ShareFile customers, we believe secure content collaboration and customer engagement are critical components of our growth strategy.”
