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Slack Valued at Over $5 Billion

posted by martyb on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:22AM   Printer-friendly
from the picking-up-the-slack dept.

takyon writes:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-slack-fundraising/slack-valued-at-5-1-billion-after-new-funding-led-by-softbank-idUSKCN1BT0KO

Software startup Slack Technologies Inc said it raised $250 million from SoftBank Group Corp and other investors in its latest funding round, boosting the company's valuation to $5.1 billion.

The latest fund-raising, led by SoftBank through its giant Vision Fund and joined by Accel and other investors, lifted Slack's total funds raised to $841 million, the enterprise messaging operator said in an emailed statement.

The fund provides resources which will help Slack to run as a cash-generating company and the raise will reduce its dependence on outside financing, Slack Chief Executive Stewart Butterfield said.

Also at TechCrunch and Bloomberg.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by zocalo on Tuesday September 19 2017, @12:59PM (6 children)

    by zocalo (302) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @12:59PM (#570164)
    We use Slack at work for remote collaboration between offices and in my experience, while it does have a few useful functions over IRC, there are not all that many of them. In practice, the only real functional advances over IRC that people actually seem to use are the web based UI and inclusion of inline imagery and emojis. Even then, all of that was pretty much already available using tools like AIM, MSN Messenger, Skype, etc. years ago, so whatever problem it was trying to solve already was. YMMV as to whether or not that is an improvement, personally I find the inline imagery to be useful (1000 words, and all that), but the standard ASCII emoticons are more than sufficient, but apparently some people feel they can't express themselves properly without spraying various fruits/veg and other things around (not to mention animated gifs).

    Frankly, I think a lot of it is just down to the mindset that newer must be better which tends to be stronger when you are younger and like to be seen as on the cutting edge of things. It's a phase most of us go through from teens-to-whenever, and it tends to pass in favour of whatever lets you get a given task done with the least resistance, regardless of how "hip" it is. Some things gain enough traction to carry on lumbering along (Facebook, maybe), others whither on the vine (MySpace), but if your primary userbase is the current generation of hipsters, then I'd be paying a LOT of attention to whether or not the next "generation" (e.g. those 5 years or so younger) is adopting your product, because if they're not it's almost certainly time to strap on that golden parachute and pull the cord.
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  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday September 19 2017, @02:44PM

    by Pino P (4721) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @02:44PM (#570196) Journal

    In practice, the only real functional advances over IRC that people actually seem to use are the web based UI and inclusion of inline imagery and emojis.

    And scrolling back to what was said earlier while you were gone without everybody having to lease a server to run his own ZNC.

  • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:07PM

    by cubancigar11 (330) on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:07PM (#570202) Homepage Journal

    ChatZilla?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:11PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:11PM (#570205)

    What does Slack have that XMPP/Jabber doesn't have, and what can we do to implement it for the open source/fuck VC ecosystem?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @03:29PM (#570220)

      Hype and buzzwords.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @05:13PM (#570262)

      Slack has nothing really special about it.

      What can be done? Make an open / free version that is dead simple to set up on a server so that companies can run their own infrastructure. There is just this magical FAITH people have that these SaaS businesses will not sell their data or spy on them. Shit, want to do corporate espionage? Work for slack!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:15PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 19 2017, @08:15PM (#570332)

      None of the FOSS(preferably agpl) xmpp web GUIs that i've seen really got good enough or gained enough traction. I would like to find one though.