Box.net (Photo credit: EvanHahn)

Cloud Storage company Box is set to offer stock on the open market at a valuation of $250 million. The company has experienced great growth in the number of users that utilize the storage options, but profitability has remained difficult. Competition in the space has been fierce with startups and large tech companies like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon offering storage services in the cloud.

The company has no time in the near future that it sees profitability according to IPO filings. It lost $168 million last year on $124 million in revenue. Non-paying customers continue to dominate its customer base with 93% of its 25 million users not paying for storage. The company is also focused on business clients which tend to pay for their services. Trading as BOX, the company selected the NYSE over listing on the NASDAQ marketplace.

Dropbox, a competitor of Box, is also planning a 2014 stock offering. Box has two free offerings that compete with DropBox and Google Drive, 10GB and 50GB through its iPhone app. The company to date has secured $414 million in funding, at a value of $2 billion. Seems like a really bad business unless they are able to find a model that is profitable. The stock shouldn’t perform well beyond pure speculation.