Skip to main content

Slack climbs ‘unicorn’ ranks with new funding and $3.8 billion valuation

slack 200 million funding hq
Image used with permission by copyright holder
The popular communication collaboration platform Slack has raised another $200 million in venture capital financing — and along with it, a valuation close to $4 billion.

This marks Slack’s biggest round of financing yet, and it comes during a time of tightened purse strings in the realm of venture capital investing for startups, according to Reuters. The $200 million round, which was confirmed by Slack, brings the company’s total venture funding to $540 million.

The latest funding also brings Slack’s valuation to around $3.8 billion, which is about $1 billion, more than its $2.8 billion valuation last year. This makes the startup one of the fastest-growing “unicorns” out there.

“As has always been the case, we are taking this opportunity to further secure our leadership position as we continue to execute on our ambitious growth plans,” said Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield in a statement. “This capital adds to our existing reserves and increases our ability to focus on an uncompromising long-term, strategic view.”

Slack, founded in 2013, boasts 2.7 million daily active users, and about 800,000 of them are paid users.

Microsoft recently contemplated submitting a bid for Slack as large as $8 billion, which would have been nearly double the startup’s latest valuation. Co-founder, technology adviser, and board member Bill Gates and CEO Satya Nadella were among those who were not in favor with pursuing the acquisition.

Editors' Recommendations

Jason Hahn
Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…
How to delete or hide chats in Microsoft Teams
Running Microsoft Teams on the Galaxy Tab S8.

Microsoft Teams is a terrific workplace platform for keeping the camaraderie strong. Featuring collaborative messaging, video conferencing, and file-sharing tools, it’s your one-stop-shop for in-office, hybrid and at-home workers alike. But anyone with a long history of using Teams will tell you how clogged up your message stockpile can get. Fortunately, deleting and hiding these exchanges is relatively easy to do, and we’ve put together this guide to help.

Read more
Why Llama 3 is changing everything in the world of AI
Meta AI on mobile and desktop web interface.

In the world of AI, you've no doubt heard about what OpenAI and Google have been up to. And now, Meta's Llama LLM (large language model) is becoming an increasingly important player in the game, especially with its open-source nature. Meta recently made a big splash with the launch of its Llama 3 AI model, and it's shaken up the field dramatically.

The reasons why are multiple and varied. It's free to use, it has a wide user base, and yes, it's open source, to name but a few. Here's why Llama 3 is taking the AI industry by storm and may shape its future for some time to come.
Llama 3 is really good
We can debate until the cows come home about how useful AIs like ChatGPT and Llama 3 are in the real world -- they're not bad at teaching you board game rules -- but the few benchmarks we have for how capable these AI are give Llama 3 a distinct advantage.

Read more
How to delete messages on your Mac
A MacBook and iPhone in shadow on a surface.

Apple likes to make things easy for its iPhone, iPad, and macOS devotees. When signed in with the same Apple ID on more than one of these devices, you’ll be able to sync your messages from one Apple product to the next. This means when you get a text on your iPhone, you’ll be able to pull it up through the Messages app on your Mac desktop.

Read more