Cloud firm Dropbox surges in Wall Street debut

NEW YORK - Dropbox shares surged Friday as the cloud data storage firm made its Wall Street debut following a public offering that raised about $750 million.

Dropbox CEO Drew Houston and Dropbox co-founder Arash Ferdowsi (C) celebrate the launch of Dropbox's initial public offering by ringing the Nasdaq opening bell on March 23, 2018 in New York

Around midday, shares trading under the symbol DBX rallied 48 percent to $31.06, after an offering price of $21.

The initial public offering was the biggest in the technology sector since Snapchat's in 2017 and is among the few "unicorns" -- venture-funded startups worth more than $1 billion -- to go public.

The strong demand suggested not all tech companies have been hit by the events of this week. Big players, especially in social media, have seen their shares dive following reports that a data analysis firm hired by Donald Trump's presidential campaign misused personal information of roughly 50 million Facebook users.

Created in 2007, Dropbox is one of a number of tech firms centered around the internet "cloud," allowing users to store data for remote access by any internet-linked devices.

Storing digital data ranging from music and films to documents, presentations, and images has become big business with the lifestyle shift to accessing content and services online.

Dropbox's market value for the initial public offering was close to $8 billion.