Work Messaging App Slack To IPO In 2019

The future of work messaging appears significantly less laborious, increasingly efficient and more emoji-clad with software like Slack.

The popular platform is eyeing an early 2019 initial public offering, according to The Wall Street Journal. The company is valued at $7 billion, the report said. 

What Is Slack?

Released in 2013, Slack is a cloud-based team collaboration service that stands for “Searchable Log Of All Conversation And Knowledge.” With over 8 million daily active users and 3 million paid users, the company has become among the most popular for workplace messaging.

Dubbed by the company as “the hub for your team and your work,” Slack provides organized channels of communication that can be classified by team, topic or project. Conversations are stored and searchable.

How Is It Successful?

On the money side, Slack recently received aid in the form of a private funding round.

Slack raised $427 million earlier this year in the funding round led by Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic, and it followed a prior round in 2017 led by SoftBank. The company has now raised over $1 billion since its launch in 2013, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Much of Slack’s popularity stems from the convenience of communicating with fellow coworkers without leaving a desk. For the demographic who experienced the rise of instant messaging, this platform also provides a nostalgic alternative to e-mail and office memos.

According to a 2018 study by smallbusiness.com, positive interactions at work often improve productivity and develop high company morale.

Who Are Its Competitors?

Following the 2017 fall of AOL’s instant messaging service, AIM, platforms like Discord have increased in popularity.

Perhaps the most popular chat for gamers, Discord is a voice-over-internet application designed for communities to communicate via text, image, video and audio in a specific channel.

Despite its very obvious differences in target audience, Discord has several advantages over Slack, based on company data. Unlike Slack’s restrictions on free accounts, Discord has unlimited messaging and storage and offers cheaper plans overall.

While other services like Voxer and InstantBird provide competition, Discord appears to be the company with the most disruptive potential for Slack as it nears the reported IPO. 

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Photo courtesy of Slack.