On average, Americans work 34.4 hours a week. Some even work longer than that. And according to Gallup, adults who are employed full time are working an average of 47 hours per week.
Americans work hard and spend a lot of time at their jobs. For those who work office jobs, you may remember when the only form of communication with your coworkers was through email.
My first job out of college required me to show up Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and to sit in a cubicle all day. Being stuck in front of a computer, answering emails, and helping with the process of creating books might not sound exhausting, but it was.
Communication is key in workplaces. Whether it’s about work, for taking a break, or talking with coworkers, communication is important…
A New Way to Communicate at Work
A few years ago, a company introduced a work chat app that took off because it provided an easy platform that made communication a lot easier. That company is called Slack Technologies, Inc.
It’s the messaging app that’s preferred at my job. And most people I know use it at their jobs, too.
Slack is a prime example of a successful Silicon Valley startup. Even Microsoft has recognized it as a major rival to its Microsoft Office Suite in an official regulatory filing. The company continues to become a stronger and durable company. It recently bought the intellectual property to Atlassian’s HipChat, which is one of its chief rivals.
And Slack isn’t stopping there. It recently earned a massive amount in an investment round. How massive? $427 million!
According to a press release, this recent addition to the company gives Slack a $7.1 billion valuation. It’s raised around $1.27 billion of venture capital. So, investors are very interested in Slack and what it has to offer…
Slack’s Inching Toward an IPO
The San Francisco-based company has a strong balance sheet that could help it in taking on some of the world’s largest tech companies, like Google, Microsoft, and Cisco. The company Slack Technologies was founded in 2009 and became the high-valued company that it is today in less than a decade.
The company was founded in 2009 but didn’t officially launch until 2014. Only a year ago, it was valued at $5.1 billion. The company’s chat app brings in 8 million users every day. Its service has over 3 million paying subscribers. Those subscribers include Autodesk, Capital One, IBM, and Target. Last year, the company earned $200 million annualized recurring revenue, which came from paying subscribers.
Slack said in a blog post:
We pursued this additional investment to give us even more resources and flexibility to better serve our customers, evolve our business, and take advantage of the massive opportunity in front of us.
One of those huge opportunities involves being lumped in with all those other high-valued tech companies, like Microsoft and Alphabet (Google). It’s definitely getting potential investors excited about the opportunities that could lie within Slack as a publicly traded company.
The company has been teasing about a potential initial price offering (IPO). And now, with the addition of $427 million in its latest investment round, investors are wondering not if the company will IPO but instead when.
The company is making a name for itself in the tech market. And it’s proving to be true competition for large tech companies, like Microsoft, which is why it’s getting the financial support that it is. And support from venture capital will help with a smooth and successful IPO whenever the company decides it’s the right time to make that plunge.
Until next time,
Jennifer Clark
Pro Trader Today