Slack Intends to Go Public in The First or Second Quarter of 2019
The popular business messaging platform has filed confidential paperwork with the SEC to go public via a Direct Listing.
Slack, the ideal chat application for small businesses with remote teams, has, according to Crunchbase, filed a confidential S-1 to the SEC. In other words, Slack intends to go public. A direct public listing will be a great source of liquidity for its employees and early investors.
The Online business messaging platform is rumored to be sitting on a pile of cash. Slack which has raised over $1 billion to date is said to have a cash haul of around $900 million, according to Bloomberg News. The company has chosen Goldman ,Morgan Stanley and Allen & Co. to be the lead bankers for its proposed DPO.
The company is poised to bypass the traditional pageantry and marketing campaign associated with a regular IPO, and instead offer its shares directly to the public. A move that will not necessarily seek to raise funds for the company, but rather provide ease of sale of existing shares in the public space.
A direct listing, among other benefits, will also allow Slack to avoid the dilution of its shares that a typical IPO would cause. The DPO route has been, in the past, successfully executed by the likes of Spotify and Google, back in
The company was valued at $7.1 billion in a $427 million funding round in August.
Representatives for Slack, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Allen & Co. didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by Bloomberg news.
Below is a history of the company's fundraising history.
