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Slack Technologies Inc. is actively preparing for an initial public offering in the first half of 2019, in anticipation of a public launch as early as the first quarter, according to people familiar with the company's plans. .
Slack expects his valuation to be well in excess of $ 7 billion, the level at which a recent round of funding has rated the company, according to these people. However, valuations can change until a company evaluates its IPO.
Slack would be one of the biggest technology IPOs since
Break
Inc.
The debut in 2017 valued the company at nearly $ 24 billion.
Slack operates a popular workplace instant messaging application that, earlier this year, had more than 8 million active users a day and 3 million paid users.
Preparations for the IPO occur shortly after Slack's latest private financing round. It raised $ 427 million earlier this year as part of a round led by Dragoneer Investment Group and General Atlantic. This followed a round led by
SoftBank Group
Corp.
in 2017, the company valued $ 5.1 billion. In total, Slack has raised more than $ 1 billion since its launch in 2013 at higher valuations.
Slack has been working on preparing for its IPO since at least 2017, but has more recently chosen to take specific steps to prepare for the launch in early 2019, say people familiar with the company's plans.
The company has not hired subscribers yet but may soon do so, said these people.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in May, Slack co-founder and chief executive Stewart Butterfield ruled out an IPO in 2018 and said the company was about to embark on a multi-year process.
After years of staying private, delaying IPOs and reaping large sums of money from private investors, technology companies are increasingly attracted to the IPO market. , considered by bankers and advisors as one of the best.
This is especially the case for fast-growing technology companies, as greedy investors for returns have been striving to buy shares of these companies exploiting the market.
According to Dealogic, the shares of recently listed US technology companies have increased by an average of about 50%, far outpacing the cumulative gains of stock indexes. According to Dealogic, 43 technology companies debuted on US stock exchanges this year on Thursday for $ 16.9 billion. That's more than technology companies had raised for entire years in 2015, 2016 and 2017, but less than the pace of 2014.
But while the pace of IPOs has accelerated, some of the most notable companies remain in private markets, including Uber Technologies Inc. and Airbnb Inc.
Write to Maureen Farrell at [email protected]
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