Amazon, other tech firms may have eyes on Slack
Slack reportedly has caught the eye of Amazon.
The San Francisco-headquartered company, which launched its workplace messaging and collaboration platform four years ago, has gotten inquiries recently from tech companies including Amazon about a possible takeover, Bloomberg reported Thurs- day, citing people with knowledge of the situation.
Others in the hunt, according to Recode, include Google, Salesforce and Microsoft, which reportedly considered an $8 billion bid of its own for Slack last year but has since put its weight behind its own Office 365 collaboration tool known as Teams.
A deal is not assured, but should one be consummated, Slack could be valued at about $9 billion, Bloomberg said.
Slack declined to comment. Amazon did not immediately re- turn a request for comment.
Interest could be spurred because Slack is seeking to raise an additional $500 million, according to Recode. Slack already has raised $540 million in funding, is valued at nearly $4 billion and has 5 million daily active users.
Earlier this year, it unveiled its Slack Enterprise Grid software designed for companies with 500 to 500,000 users. Among its customers is IBM, which is working to integrate its Watson artificial intelligence system with Slack for new workplace applications. Slack’s initial chatroom software targeted small groups with a freemium model and subscriptions for larger teams.
In an interview last month with Bloomberg TV, CEO and company co-founder Stewart Butterfield said an IPO for Slack would be “years away.”
For Amazon, Slack would be complementary to its alreadydominant Amazon Web Services cloud-computing platform, says Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.