- General
- April 27, 2019
- 5 minutes read
More Details From Slack’s S-1 Filing
Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield image: Slack Slack has officially filed to go public via a direct listing on the New…
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| Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield
image: Slack
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Slack has officially filed to go public via a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange. As usual, a company’s S-1 filing reveals several key details about its operations. A previous article made note of some stats revealed by Slack in its filing like revenue, amount of users, amount of paying customers, executive compensation, and stakes held by VC funds. But there’s more info in Slack’s S-1 filing. They include:
- $180.8 million cash and cash equivalents held (as of January 31, 2019)
- $8.8 million committed so far to The Slack Fund, a VC style fund it holds 52% voting interest in. The Slack Fund was established in partnership with Kleiner Perkins, Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, Index Ventures, and Social Capital who are all also investors in Slack
- $10.1 million total invested in 46 companies from The Slack Fund
- $157.5 million R&D spend for the year ended January 31, 2019, compared to $141.3 million in 2018 and $96.7 million in 2017
- $233.2 million sales and marketing spend for the year ended January 31, 2019, compared to $140.2 million in 2018 and $104 million in 2017
- More than 500,000 organizations currently on Slack’s Free subscription plan
- More than 50 million hours total of Slack usage
- 1,502 full-time employees as of January 31, 2019
- Partnerships with the likes of Okta, ServiceNow, SAP, Workday, Zoom, Atlassian, Google, Oracle, and Salesforce
- More than 500 employees working in engineering, product, research, and design teams
- One issued patent due to expire in 2036, with more than 80 patent applications pending
- Previous share repurchase programs of 100 thousand shares at a price of $7.41 per share in April and June 2017, and 100 thousand shares at a price of $8.37 per share in December 2017
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| Ex-Google executive and Slack Chief Product Officer, Tamar Yehoshua
image: Slack
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This year alone, companies like Lyft, Pinterest, Jumia, and Zoom valued in the billions have debuted on the public markets. Uber is expected to also debut in one what will likely be the biggest IPO this year. Other companies like Israel’s Gett, Postmates, Fastly, and CrowdStrike are also likely contenders for an IPO this year.
