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Slack (software)

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This article is about the software. For company that produces this software, see Slack Technologies.

Slack
Original author(s)Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov[1]
Developer(s)Slack Technologies
Initial releaseAugust 2013; 11 years ago (2013-08)[2]
Operating systemWindows, Mac OS X, Linux, iOS, Android[3]
PlatformCross-platform
TypeCollaborative software[4]
LicenseProprietary
Websitewww.slack.com

Slack is a team collaboration tool co-founded by Stewart Butterfield, Eric Costello, Cal Henderson, and Serguei Mourachov.[1] Slack began as an internal tool used by their company Tiny Speck in the development of Glitch, a now defunct online game.[5][6] Slack was launched in August 2013, and signed up 8,000 customers within 24 hours of launch.[7][8]

Funding and growth

The company originally raised nearly $43 million in April 2014.[9] In October 2014, the company raised $120 million in venture capital with a $1.2 billion valuation led by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Google Ventures. Earlier investors Andreessen Horowitz, Accel Partners and The Social+Capital Partnership also participated in this round.[10]

In March 2015, Slack signed a deal with investors to raise up to $160 million in a funding round that values the company at $2.76 billion. New investors include Institutional Venture Partners, Horizons Ventures, Index Ventures and DST Global.[11] In April 2015, the company raised another $160 million.[12]

Slack has experienced rapid growth since it was first released. In February 2015, the company declared that it was adding around 10,000 new daily active users each week, and had more than 135,000 paying customers spread across 60,000 teams.[13][14] By April, those numbers had grown to 200,000 paid subscribers and a total of 750,000 daily active users.[15] In June 2015, Slack passed more than a million active users.[16]

The Financial Times wrote in March 2015 that Slack was the first business technology to have crossed from business into personal use since Microsoft Office and the BlackBerry.[17]

Features

Slack offers persistent chat rooms organized by topic, as well as private groups and direct messaging.[6] All content inside Slack is searchable, including files, conversations, and people. Slack integrates with a large number of third-party services and supports community-built integrations.[18] Major integrations include services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Heroku, Crashlytics, GitHub, Runscope and Zendesk.[19][20]

In January 2015, Slack announced the acquisition of Screenhero, which will be integrated into the Slack software to add voice, video, and screen sharing.[21]

In July 2015, Slack added Emoji Reactions, giving users the ability to add emoji buttons to their messages, which other users can then click on to express their reactions to messages.[22]

Platforms

Slack provides apps for Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone (beta) [23] and released an official Windows client on 18 March 2015.[24] Slack is also available for the Apple Watch, allowing users to send direct messages, see mentions, and make simple replies.[25] It was featured on the home screen of the Apple Watch in a promotional video.[26] Slack also provides a Web version accessible from a browser, and there is an unofficial client for Linux.[27]

References

  1. ^ a b Kumparak, Greg. "Slack's Co-Founders Take Home The Crunchie For Founder Of The Year". TechCrunch. Retrieved April 10, 2015.
  2. ^ Zax, David, Flickr Cofounders Launch Slack, An Email Killer, retrieved April 19, 2015
  3. ^ Slack, Slack apps for computers, phones & tablets, retrieved April 19, 2015
  4. ^ "Crunchbase - Slack Technologies". CrunchBase. Retrieved April 19, 2015.
  5. ^ Tam, Donna, Flickr founder plans to kill company e-mails with Slack, retrieved November 26, 2013
  6. ^ a b Thomas, Owen, Die, Email, Die! A Flickr Cofounder Aims To Cut Us All Some Slack, retrieved November 26, 2013
  7. ^ Koetsier, John, Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield’s new Slack signed up 8,000 companies in 24 hours, retrieved November 26, 2013
  8. ^ Fingas, Jon, Flickr creator takes sign-ups for Slack, an office collaboration tool with universal search, retrieved November 26, 2013
  9. ^ Ingrid Lunden (April 25, 2014). "Slack, Stewart Butterfield's Collaboration Software Startup, Has Raised $42.75M". Techcrunch. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  10. ^ Alex Hern (November 3, 2014). "Why Slack is worth $1bn: it's trying to change how we work". The Guardian. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
  11. ^ Macmillan, Douglas. "Slack's Valuation More Than Doubles to $2.8 Billion in Five Months". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 28, 2015.
  12. ^ Ingrid Lunden (April 15, 2015). "Used Daily By 750K Workers, Slack Raises $160M, Valuing Collaboration Startup At $2.8B". Techcrunch. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
  13. ^ "Slack growth skyrockets: 10,000 new active users each week". Fortune. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  14. ^ "Billion-dollar startup Slack says it's adding $1 million in new contracts every 11 days". Business Insider. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  15. ^ "Slack continues huge growth, is now valued at $2.8 billion". The Verge. Retrieved June 7, 2015.
  16. ^ "Slack Keeps On Growing". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved June 25, 2015.
  17. ^ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bd7dbf46-d24c-11e4-9c25-00144feab7de.html
  18. ^ Dowinton, Richard. "Bye Bye HipChat, Hello Slack!". Retrieved April 18, 2015.
  19. ^ Gannes, Liz, Flickr Co-Founder Stewart Butterfield Turns to Workplace Communication Tools With Slack, retrieved November 26, 2013
  20. ^ Augustine, Ann, Slack Sets New Standard for Team Communication Online, retrieved November 27, 2013
  21. ^ http://blog.screenhero.com/post/109337923751/screenhero-joins-slack
  22. ^ Crook, Jordan. "Slack Adds Emoji Reactions".
  23. ^ http://www.windowscentral.com/slack-windows-phone-app-beta-now-available-everyone
  24. ^ "Slack for Windows Has Arrived - Slack Blog". Slack. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
  25. ^ http://venturebeat.com/2015/04/20/slack-brings-its-app-to-the-apple-watch-video/
  26. ^ http://uk.businessinsider.com/salesforce-evernote-slack-and-other-apple-watch-business-apps-2015-3?r=US
  27. ^ "ScudCloud - non official open-source Linux desktop client for Slack". GitHub. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
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