Slack Gets Slice of SoftBank’s $100 Billion Tech Bounty

Workplace messaging startup is now valued at more than $5 billion.
Slack CEO Says It'll Be 'Quite a While' for an IPO
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Slack Technologies Inc. closed a $250 million funding round led by SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund, giving it more ammunition for expansion in an increasingly competitive market for workplace messaging services.

The financing round values the startup at $5.1 billion, up from $3.8 billion the last time. The Vision Fund is joined by Accel and other investors, Slack said Sunday. Bloomberg reported on the latest funding in July.

More than half of the new funding came from SoftBank, Slack’s Chief Executive Officer Stewart Butterfield said in an interview in London Monday. Butterfield was approached by Deep Nishar, managing director of investments at SoftBank, about 4 or 5 months ago, he said.