The Slack logo on a mobile phone. Image: MichaelJayBerlin/Shutterstock
Slack’s rise to the top of workplace communication continues after it secured almost half a billion dollars in Series H funding.
Having come a long, long way since being an offshoot product idea of a relatively small gaming company, Slack continues to rake in investment from some of the world’s biggest venture capital funds.
Now, the company has announced that its latest cash influx has tipped it past the $7bn mark – $7.1bn to be exact – following the completion of a round of Series H funding worth $427m.
Reports had trickled out about the funding round earlier this year, but this announcement confirmed the deal. The investment was led by Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic.
Rapid growth
In a statement, Dragoneer’s founder and managing partner, Marc Stad, said: “Slack is an exceptional company that is revolutionising the way people collaborate, and we look forward to a long-term partnership with the Slack team as they continue to grow the business.”
T Rowe Price Associates was another firm involved in the deal, and its equity research analyst, Alan Tu, added: “Slack has made strong progress in a very short time in this new era of enterprise collaboration.
“Our investment represents our belief in the company’s vision and leadership team, together with the product’s potential to increase productivity and change the way people work on an even larger scale.”
This round also pushes Slack’s total funding past the $1bn mark, having already raised $841m in previous rounds.
The company reports that it now has 8m daily active users and more than 70,000 paid teams, with many more smaller teams opting for its free service.
Facing down the competition
Slack’s last major funding announcement came in September of last year with the closing of $250m in finance led by Japanese powerhouse SoftBank.
However, it is facing increasing competition from a number of familiar names, most notably Microsoft, which offers its own Yammer and Teams platforms.
Its biggest competition arguably comes from China where Alibaba’s DingTalk already has 100m individual users to its name since it launched in 2014. That said, its users don’t seem terribly happy, with reports that they feel it fuels an unhealthy work culture.
The Slack logo on a mobile phone. Image: MichaelJayBerlin/Shutterstock
