Slack, the US-based creator of a workplace communication app backed by investors including internet company Google, has agreed up to $160m in new funding, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
The company has secured $135m from investment firm Horizons Ventures, which provided $50m, Institutional Venture Partners, Index Ventures and DST Global, and has the option to raise a further $25m from these new investors or its existing backers, according to people familiar with the matter.
Slack has developed a freemium app, launched just over a year ago, that enables people to communicate with each other by exchanging messages and files. More than 135,000 of its 500,000 users pay a monthly cost of $6.67 or more, according to the WSJ.
The latest funding is being raised at a $2.76bn valuation, more than double the $1.1bn valuation at which Slack raised $120m in November 2014. Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield stated in November that the company did not ‘need’ the funding, but the money could perhaps herald an expansion of Slack’s technology to non-work functions.
Google Ventures, the corporate venturing unit owned by Google, co-led that round with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, while Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners and The Social+Capital Partnership also took part.
The company has raised about $180m in total funding since it was founded in 2009.