Dropbox is one of the most estabished and popular platforms in the crowded cloud-storage market.

So today we're going beyond the uploads to understand what makes the file-sharing service tick.

Drop of a hat

Like many tech start ups, Dropbox was founded by MIT students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi.

Houston reportedly came up with the idea after continually losing his flash drive, and being unsatisfied with the existing file-sharing options.

Dropbox was launched in June 2007 and saw a stunning jump in growth. By October that year the service had 50 million registered users.

Cloud talk

Dropbox now has 400 million users, making it bigger than both Instagram and LinkedIn.

Available in 200 countries and 19 languages, over a typical day the Dropbox community sends 1.2 billion documents.

File frenzy

Dropbox is a busy place. Every second over 4000 files are edited on the service, while over an hour more than 100,000 shared folders and links are created.

There are currently over 35 billion MS Office files stored on Dropbox, and 300,000 apps have been built on the platform.

Brand business

While Dropbox was initially conceived as a platform for individuals, the company has steadily been improving its offering for brands. 

The shift seems to be working.

At last count 100,000 companies were signed up to Dropbox, while over 97% of Fortune 500 companies are Dropbox clients.