INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
As Slack looks to woo larger and larger companies with the prospect of a simpler workplace collaboration tool, the company said it has now
hit 8 million daily active users.The company said it also has 3 million paid users
A darling in Silicon Valley, Slack was initially able to capitalize on pent-up demand for workplace communications tools that were much
Companies like Yammer, Microsoft, and others looked to remake internal communications in ways that looked more like consumer tools in the
Web 2.0 era, but Slack came out with an approach that was initially just a slick chat and team communications tool
That helped it rocket to a $5.1 billion valuation and drive its initial adoption among smaller companies and startups.Slack in September
said it had around 6 million daily active users, 50,000 teams and 2 million paid users, and around $200 million in annual recurring revenue
like Slack beyond just domestic markets.Slack has been trying to roll out additional tools to support those larger companies, rather than
just operate as a chat tool that can get out of control when companies have thousands of employees
The company has invested heavily in machine learning tools to make it easier to search for answers that may already exist in some Slack
channel or direct message
simpler interface.There are already startups looking to pick away at niches that the company might not necessarily fill, too
Slite, a startup looking to build a simpler notes tool that would create a smarter internal wiki of sorts, raised $4.4 million last month
And Microsoft has its own Slack competitor, Teams, that continues to get pretty big updates
Slack clearly exposed a lot of pent-up demand for similar tools, and now faces a lot of competition going forward.Slack started the Slack
Fund as a way to woo developers to build tools for Slack, and early last year invested in 11 new companies
The company has been trying to create a robust ecosystem where developers can fill the niches that the company might be missing, but has
looks to focus on its core products
The company says there are now more than 1,500 apps in the Slack directory.
