Local firm on a mission to boost work efficiency

U.S. tech giant Slack acquiring software from app developer Robots and Pencils

Calgary-founded app development company Robots & Pencils has signed a deal with workplace communications platform Slack, which will see the San Franciscobased tech giant acquire a Robots & Pencils venture called Missions.

Robots & Pencils — which has 200 employees worldwide, including 60 in Calgary — developed Missions through its Fun-Labs program, which frees up employees who would otherwise be tasked with designing apps and mobile solutions for clients to work on their own pet projects instead.

“A lot of our time can be spent just solving clients’ problems,” said Jamie Reid, communications director for Robots & Pencils. “So this was a strategic decision, really, to give a small group of people their entire time to focus on experimenting and seeing what they can come up with .”

Missions, an add-on for Slack which allows anyone using the business messaging system to easily automate routine workflows and tasks without having to use code, was initially used in-house by Robots & Pencils employees.

It has since been adopted by companies across all kinds of industries, who use it to do everything from approving vacation time to requesting office supplies, all within the Slack platform.

While financial terms of the Missions acquisition were not disclosed, Ryley Moskal — Robots & Pencils vice-president of market research — said that Slack is currently valued at more than $5 billion, and is one of the fastest growing workplace software applications ever.

“This (the Missions deal) is the third ever acquisition Slack has ever made,” Moskal said. “This is three in the entire history of a $5-billion unicorn.”

As part of the deal, the four-person team behind the development of Missions will now become employees of Slack, where they will continue working to integrate the add-on into the Slack platform. However, they will remain connected to their old employer as voluntary advisers.

Robots & Pencils, which was founded in 2009, has since developed 175 custom applications — mostly mobile apps, but the company also works in the field of frontier technologies like artificial intelligence. Its past clients have included WestJet, Agrium, and Enmax Corp.

In January 2017, Robots & Pencils merged with Cleveland-based Kinetiq Digital. The company retained the Robots & Pencils name and its staff and office in Calgary, though its official headquarters is now in Cleveland where it is working on expanding its U.S. market space.

It also has offices in Austin, Denver, New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, and London, U.K.

Robots & Pencils co-founder and CEO Michael Sikorsky, who split his time between Calgary and San Diego for several years, is now permanently based in San Diego.