Slack Technologies has raised a spectacular $120 million, for a post-funding valuation of a whopping $1.12 billion. The investment was co-led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Venture, with assistance from all existing investors and a few new ones, including Yammer founder and former PayPal COO David Sacks.
Slack launched last February by Stewart Butterfield, the Canadian entrepreneur who previously founded Flickr, which was later sold to Yahoo in 2005 for a reported $35 million. Slack was built by Tiny Speck, a Vancouver-based computer game startup founded in 2009. Most of the leadership at Tiny Speck came from Ludicorp, the company that built Flickr.
Slack is used by 30,000 active teams who send over 200 million messages each month.
“The world is in the very early stages of a 100 year shift in how people communicate, and we’re determined to push the boundaries,” says Stewart Butterfield, Slack CEO and co-founder. “As the leader of a brand new product category, we have a huge advantage right now. These next 6 to 18 months are going to be critical for growth and this funding round gives us unlimited flexibility to ensure that Slack’s momentum will continue to pick up steam.”
John Doerr general partner of KPCB, said “Never before have we witnessed so much user love for an enterprise software platform. Slack puts all of your team’s communications in one place, instantly searchable and available wherever you go. Life is a lot better with less email.”