US-based collaboration tool developer Slack is raising $500m to add to funding from investors including corporate venture capital units GV and Comcast Ventures, Recode reported yesterday.
Slack has built a workplace messaging and collaboration platform with 5 million daily active users. It launched an enterprise version for large businesses earlier this year and has projected $1bn in revenue for 2018, though it is yet to enter profit.
The round will value Slack at $5bn post-money, according to Recode, and news of the funding comes a day after Bloomberg reported that e-commerce and cloud computing firm Amazon had expressed interest in acquiring Slack in a deal that would be at least $9bn in size.
The discrepancy in the valuations is due to Slack founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield’s desire to remain independent despite an initial public offering not likely to be on the horizon any time soon.
Software provider Microsoft, enterprise software producer Salesforce and Alphabet, the internet and technology group that owns GV, are also interested in buying the company, according to Recode, though none of the four have yet made formal offers.
Slack has raised about $540m in funding altogether, with GV (then known as Google Ventures) and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers co-leading its $120m series C round in 2014.
GV, Index, Horizons Ventures, DST Global, Spark Capital Growth and IVP provided $160m in series E funding for Slack in 2015, before Comcast Ventures, mass media group Comcast’s CVC arm, joined GV, Index, Accel and Social Capital for a $200m round in April 2016.