Popular workplace messaging app Slack is gearing up for an Initial Public Offering (IPO) and could possibly go public by 2017.
The information comes courtesy of Stewart Butterfield, Slack's founder and CEO, who revealed in an interview to a publication that it had launched its "IPO readiness" program.
Slack kicked off this internal preparatory program three to four months ago and the notion behind the campaign is to have the option in the near future and be equipped for the same.
"We've done our first external audit and we've put in place a lot of controls and security practices. There's a lot of predictability that needs to be evident in the business, so we're spending a lot on analysis and data infrastructure," revealed Butterfield.
If everything goes according to Slack's plan of action, then the "absolute earliest" the company could go public would be in 18 months from now, which means April 2017.
While the tech IPO space has been slow in 2015 owing to lesser offerings than normal, prominent IPOs of Match Group (Tinder's parent company) and Square may have potentially reignited interest in IPOs.
Slack, for its part, has steadily climbed up the popularity and growth ladder since its launch in 2013. Slack, the brainchild of Butterfield, originated from his gaming start-up Tiny Speck and in a short span of time has evolved into an indispensable messaging app for the workplace.
The workplace messaging app is now poised to evolve into a platform which will imbibe other collaborative tools required in an office environment.
The messaging service is valued at $2.8 billion and accounts for 1.7 million daily users. In April this year, Slack raised $160 million which brought its total funding to $340 million. It is backed by several private venture capitals such as Accel Partners, Horizons Ventures, DST Global, Google Ventures, Spark Capital, Andreessen Horowitz and more.
Slack's rival Atlassian has already filed for paperwork to go public. Butterfield says his company will be eyeing the Atlassian IPO closely as the growth and sales model for the latter is similar.
