Reports in the tech world indicate that Slack could be up for sale. It is emerging that the corporate chatroom startup has received interest from key technology companies for a potential takeover. Amazon is one of the leading frontrunners to acquire the messaging platform. Recently, Slack’s messaging platform has had a good share of admirers. The technology has been adopted by major companies all over the world including BuzzFeed, Samsung, and Airbnb among others. Investors have poured a lot of money into the startup to help fund growth. As of now, the total amount of money raised stands at $540 million including a sizable $200 million capital that was raised back in April this year.
According to a source from Bloomberg with inside information about what is happening, it is expected that Slack will get offers of nearly $9 billion for a possible takeover. However, the company is expected to turn down would-be suitors. Amazon is one of the names that have been mentioned in this potential deal. The online retail giant has been trying to diversify its business by launching food delivery services as well as cloud storage. In addition to this, as one of the five biggest tech companies in the US, it’s the only one without a messaging service. Facebook already has Messenger, Apple has iMessage, Microsoft has Outlook, and of course, Google has Hangouts.
But why would Amazon even be interested in acquiring Slack? Well, to start with, the messaging service has seen outstanding success since 2013 because it’s a simple technology that allows employees to be connected at work using their smartphones. At the moment, Slack has 5 million users per day and 1 million users who pay for the extra features. The messaging platform claimed that it had at least 77 Fortune 100 companies that were using its technology including major brands out there. But this is not the first time a major interest has been raised towards Slack. It is reported that sometime last year Microsoft was planning to take over the messaging service but opted to launch Teams, a collaborative group chat service that targets businesses at corporate environments.
The takeover could also signal how Amazon wants to look in the future. Although the tech company has launched many businesses outside its main online retail space where it has dominated, it also has a widely used cloud computing service that targets businesses around the world. Analysts argue that adding a popular corporate chat service as part of the offerings would strengthen the company’s position in corporate cloud computing moving forward. However, neither Amazon nor Slack made a statement regarding the potential deal.
Multibillion dollar acquisitions in Silicon Valley are not abnormal but every time such deals are offered, there is always someone looking. Even though Slack is expected to reject this potential offer, no doubt it will open a window for more negotiations and who knows what can happen there. Unfortunately there is also no mention of any other companies interested in acquiring Slack but perhaps this will change in the coming next few days.
