US-based messaging platform developer Slack Technologies confirmed yesterday that it has confidentially filed for a public listing that would enable corporates Alphabet, Comcast and SoftBank to exit.
The company intends to follow the lead of music streaming platform Spotify by eschewing a traditional initial public offering in favour of a direct listing that would involve shareholders selling stock, according to Bloomberg.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Company are among the underwriters working with Slack on the listing, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, adding that Slack chose the direct listing method because it does not need cash or the publicity related to an IPO.
Slack’s freemium workspace communication platform has more than 10 million daily active users and can be integrated with a wide range of other platforms including Salesforce, Workday and Atlassian. It has some 85,000 corporate customers who use the paid version.
A source told the Wall Street Journal last month that Slack expects to float at a $7bn valuation comparable to the $7.1bn valuation at which it last raised funding, in a $427m series H round in August 2018 that took its total funding to about $1.27bn.
The series H was co-led by investment group Dragoneer and growth equity firm General Atlantic and backed by Sands Capital, Baillie Gifford, funds advised by Wellington Management, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price, and undisclosed existing investors.
GV, the subsidiary of internet technology group Alphabet then known as Google Ventures, co-led Slack’s $120m series D round in 2014 with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), investing with Andreessen Horowitz, Accel and Social Capital at a $1.12bn valuation.
Slack added $160m from all the series D investors as well as Horizons Ventures, DST Global, Index Ventures, Spark Capital Growth and Institutional Venture Partners (IVP) in a 2015 series E round that valued it at $2.8bn.
Mass media group Comcast’s corporate venturing unit, Comcast Ventures, joined GV, Accel, Index Ventures and Social Capital to supply $200m at a $3.8bn post-money valuation the following year, before SoftBank’s Vision Fund led a $250m series G featuring Accel in 2017 that valued the company at $5.1bn post-money.
