As , the New York Stock Exchange has announced that has set its reference share price1 at $26. The workplace communications platform is forgoing a traditional IPO in favor of a direct listing, and it will be trading under the stock ticker symbol “WORK.”
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While there���s no way of knowing how exactly Slack will perform on the market, it���s expected to do quite well. Per the company���s S-1, Slack has a ton of cash on-hand. So much, in fact, Alex Wilhelm reported that ���it will never, ever run out of money unless it loses focus and crashes itself into the side of a mountain.���
Here are other details from 蹤獲弝け News���s last dive into Slack���s S-1 filing:
- Slack Q1 Revenue: $134.8 million
- Slack Q1 Calculated Billings: $149.6 million
- Slack Q1 year-over-year (YoY) revenue growth: 66.6 percent
- Slack sequential-quarterly revenue growth: 10.7 percent
- Slack Q1 net loss: $31.9 million
- Slack year-ago net loss: $24.9 million
- Slack Q1 net margin: -25 percent
- Slack Q1 free cash flow (FCF): -$34.2 million
- Slack year-ago FCF: -$15.0 million
Founded in 2009, the popular business management and communication software has raised a known total of nearly $1.4 billion. At the company���s most recent funding event, a $427 million Series H led by and , the company was valued at over $7 billion, post-money. Slack is backed by a number of high profile Silicon Valley-based investors including and , which made early bets on the company. (previously known as Google Ventures), , , , and, of course, , also bought in.
As mentioned before, this is an uncommon way to enter the public markets. The traditional IPO process helps you fundraise, with the extra support of a bank to make sure when you start trading you don���t totally tank. Last January, an IPO expert told 蹤獲弝け News that a direct listing could be employed for a variety of reasons: growth, revenue size, and the general climate of an industry. He also said that companies that pursue this method might not be ���strong enough��� to go through the traditional process. Wilhelm bets that Slack���s direct listing to avoid further dilution (see the long list of investors in the paragraph prior), particularly given that the company doesn���t need to fundraise.
That said, another company that opted for a direct listing in the past is music streaming service Spotify. Some theorized it did so because it lacked strong growth to go the traditional route. However, Spotify���s solid performance on the market since direct listing tests that theory.
More when Slack begins trading.
Here is on what a reference share price is: ���The reference price is not a share offering price. It���s also not the opening public price for shares of Slack. Instead, it is a point of reference for investors as they put in order for the stock.���↩
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