Putting a Price on Chat: Slack is Going Public at $16 Billion Value :
In just five years, Slack has grown to have more than 10 million users and has become a verb in the process. "I'll Slack you" is shorthand for sending a message via the workplace chat platform.
On Thursday, the company will take that popularity to the New York Stock Exchange, where its shares will be publicly listed for the first time.
At a starting price of $26 per share set Wednesday, Slack Technologies would be worth about $16 billion.
Instead of having a conventional initial public offering, Slack will enter into the market as a direct listing, which means the shares will simply be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Most firms that pass on an IPO are widely known companies that are in good financial shape.
[...] In the fiscal year that ended Jan. 31, Slack nearly doubled its revenues, to about $400 million. But it had a net loss of nearly $139 million.
[...] Slack, which was publicly released in 2014, stemmed from an internal chat platform created by CEO Stewart Butterfield during a failed video game development. The software was created to avoid the confusion of email and, per its acronym, provide a "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge" for the team, which had people working all over North America.
A company that lost $133 million on revenue of $400 million is worth... $16 billion? I must be doing something wrong.
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:06PM (1 child)
Slack can also do voice or video calling between users as well as establishing different channels for group and teamwork. Plus it allows for third party plugins. It's not "just a chat platform," but rather a next-generation connectivity tool for business users.
It's competitors are Microsoft Teams, Workplace by Facebook, and to a much lesser degree Salesforce which is a prior-generation tool AFAICT. Plus Discord. (I've used Slack and the environment I'm part of moved over to Discord once Slack started demanding cash. For our uses Discord has been better, providing the same functionality with more services. But someday Discord will have to face the question of how they're going to monetize also).
And does that make it worth $16 Billion? We will certainly find out. But I don't see how we're not climbing Tech Bubble 3.0 at this point.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 20 2019, @03:40PM
When was 2.0?