Slack Technologies Inc. has raised a quarter of a billion dollars from investors led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s (TIKER: SFT.XETRA) Vision Fund, Financial Times reports.
The financing round values the startup at $5.1 billion, up from $3.8 billion the last time. The Vision Fund is joined by Accel and other investors, Slack said Sunday. Bloomberg reported on the latest funding in July.
“We have a lot of large customers, and the bigger ones are a lot more conservative. 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,” Slack’s Chief Executive Officer Stewart Butterfield said in an interview.
Slack launched in 2013, billing its work chat service as the end of email. It became the fastest startup to become a "unicorn" with a $1 billion valuation, and last week reported a major milestone: $200 million in recurring annual revenue. There were also rumours that Amazon was considering acquiring the firm, though a deal hasn't materialised.
Slack has more than 9 million weekly active users, up from 6.8 million in January.