- Slack announced Monday that they have confidentially filed to go public in 2019 with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
- Slack offers a sophisticated chatroom platform for enterprise collaboration that major companies like Target and Starbucks use.
- The company was last valued in 2018 at $7 billion.
Slack Technologies Inc. has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to the proposed public listing of its Class A common stock, fulfilling the first official requirement in the road to going public. The workplace communication and collaboration tools company made the filing on Monday, but did not provide details as to the number of the shares or price range of the offering.
“The public listing is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions,” Slack said in a press release. The filing follows months of speculation on the company’s rumored listing and investors are betting that it could be one of the hottest IPOs of 2019.
Sources familiar with the matter told Reuters in December that Slack intends to seek a direct listing as opposed to a traditional offering as early as the spring. Such a listing bypasses traditional underwriters and gives insiders the option to sell shares without a lock-up period. If regulators approve the offering, Slack will become the second major tech company after Spotify Technology SA to pursue a direct listing.
The sources also added that the firm is hoping to fetch a valuation of more than $10 billion from the offering. Slack, which is based in San Francisco, was launched back in 2013 and had a private-market valuation of $7.1 billion in August 2018.
The company provides direct and chat messaging services for businesses and competes against the likes of Cisco’s Webex Teams, Alphabet’s Google Hangouts Chat, and Microsoft’s Teams. Slack has reportedly picked Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Allen & Co, and Morgan Stanley to work on the share price, according to people familiar with the matter.
