Slack Raises $250 Million in New Funding, Now Valued at $5.1 Billion

Slack, a workplace collaboration and messaging platform for teams, has completed a $250 million funding round, led by SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund along

Subscription News: Slack Raises $250 Million in New Funding

Source: Slack

Slack, a workplace collaboration and messaging platform for teams, has completed a $250 million funding round, led by SoftBank Group Corp’s Vision Fund along with Accel and other investors, reports Bloomberg. According to Bloomberg, Slack will use the new funding for ‘operational flexibility,’ though the company still has plenty of the original $591 million raised in the bank. This level of backing makes Slack more attractive to companies considering Slack as a workplace tool.

Slack, which boasts more than 9 million weekly active users, is now valued at $5.1 billion, and Bloomberg reports that more than 2 million people use a paid version of Slack. Annual subscription revenue is around $200 million.

‘We have a lot of large customers, and the bigger ones are a lot more conservative,’ said Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield in an interview with Bloomberg. ‘As they move tens of thousands of people over to Slack, they want to make sure we’re going to be around. But it especially helps with potential recruits. We still have to compete with Facebook and Google and they give substantial offers there.’

Launched in 2014, Slack is used by more than 50,000 companies and millions of people around the world, including Airbnb, Time, Pinterest, BuzzFeed, Pandora, eBay, Conde Nast, Autodesk, NASA, SurveyMonkey, and Harvard University. Using a freemium model, Slack offers a free version for small teams, a Standard plan for teams and businesses who want to use Slack as a hub for projections and communications, a Plus plan for businesses that need SSO, Compliance Exports and guaranteed uptime, and the Slack Enterprise Grid for robust, organization-wide use.

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 Now Valued at $5.1 Billion

Source: Slack

While the free version has limitations, it is still a pretty robust product. The paid plans offer 10+ third-party integrations (there are more than 1,000 apps available), voice and video calls, screen sharing, priority support and other features.

News of the funding round coincided with Slack’s announcement of its new Shared Channels feature, which allows Slack users to communicate with anyone, including external vendors, partners and clients, outside their companies. Slack allows two organizations to create a common workspace within Slack, increasing both the companies’ ability to communicate and their level of transparency. The Shared Channels feature is in beta testing right now and available to teams using the paid Standard and Plus plans. Support for enterprise level plans is coming soon, but it doesn’t sound like Slack will offer this feature to free users.

Subscription News: Slack Raises $250 Million in New Funding

Source: Slack

Insider Take:

If you aren’t using Slack, you should check it out. We’ve been using it at Subscription Insider for a while, and it has been a great way to coordinate communication across departments. It is particularly helpful since our team spans several time zones. It allows us to communicate in real-time, share files, discuss articles and issues to cover, upload links and images, and more.

We are probably missing out by not integrating more apps into Slack, but it still holds value for us. Instead of combing through emails trying to find that one where we discussed ABC Subscription Co., we do a simple search in Slack and voila – there are all the mentions of that topic. We can communicate as a group, by topic, or hold private conversations. It’s an amazing tool and more efficient than email.

Considering the company launched three years ago, and it is already valued at $5.1 billion, we’d say Slack is growing nicely. It is helping people adapt how they collaborate and communicate with each other, and it is doing so in an affordable way. On top of that, Slack has an upbeat tone and feel about it that adds a little fun to the work day. We are excited to see what Slack comes up with next!

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