top of page

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 Founders: Stewart Butterfield & Cal Henderson

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.




60 views
bottom of page