Dropbox plans AI storage expansion with $350M Tigris Data deal
Dropbox has agreed to acquire cloud technology company Tigris Data for $350 million, a transaction that appears to be the company’s largest acquisition to date. Announced on Thursday, the deal is intended to strengthen Dropbox’s AI infrastructure capabilities and support DBX Agent Cloud, a new storage platform for businesses and developers building AI models and agents.
Dropbox expects the transaction to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. The company told TechCrunch that it has no plans to reduce headcount as part of the acquisition, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Dropbox cut 9% of its global workforce last month.
Object storage is the starting point
DBX Agent Cloud will initially offer object storage as a standalone product. Businesses will be able to buy the storage independently and use it with existing tools and applications built for Amazon S3, Amazon’s cloud storage service for storing and retrieving large volumes of data.
The planned platform is aimed at workloads in which AI models and agents need reliable access to underlying content. Dropbox says it intends to expand DBX Agent Cloud with capabilities that help AI systems work across documents, images, audio and video.
Tigris brings regional data placement technology
Tigris Data was founded by former Uber engineers who helped build the ride-hailing company’s storage infrastructure. Its cloud storage technology is designed to let businesses store and access data across regions, automatically positioning data closer to the users and computing resources that require it.
That approach is intended to reduce access times and improve performance. Tigris raised $25 million in a Series A funding round last year. For Dropbox, the acquisition supplies technology aligned with a storage offering where data placement can matter to applications and AI systems operating across locations.
AI features are also coming to Dropbox
Alongside the infrastructure plans, Dropbox is adding AI capabilities to its core product. Users will be able to ask AI to perform supported tasks using their files, choose between different AI models and connect Dropbox content to third-party tools including ChatGPT, Claude and Muse.
Dropbox also plans filesystem features that would allow AI agents to manage files and maintain continuity across tasks and sessions. The updated experience has already reached more than 70,000 teams. Its initial rollout is available to eligible Standard and Advanced customers in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia, with wider availability planned for 2027.
What businesses should assess
The Tigris purchase follows Dropbox acquisitions of AI-focused companies including Reclaim.ai, Promoted.ai and Mobius Labs. Businesses evaluating Dropbox’s plans should distinguish the current customer rollout from the future DBX Agent Cloud offering, then assess S3 compatibility, regional data-access requirements and the controls needed when AI agents manage files across recurring tasks.