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Slack, a Leading Unicorn, Raises $200 Million in New Financing

Stewart Butterfield, the chief executive of Slack, at the company’s office in San Francisco.Credit...Jason Henry for The New York Times

Some unicorns are still galloping.

Slack, the popular workplace collaboration start-up, said it had raised $200 million in new venture financing on Friday, valuing the privately held company at $3.6 billion. Slack is part of a group of prominent start-ups known as “unicorns,” private companies valued at $1 billion or more.

“As has always been the case, we are taking this opportunity to further secure our leadership position as we continue to execute on our ambitious growth plans,” Stewart Butterfield, chief executive of Slack, said in a statement. “This capital adds to our existing reserves and increases our ability to focus on an uncompromising long-term, strategic view.”

The financing, which puts Slack’s value at nearly $1 billion more than at its last major financing round nearly a year ago, comes during a tumultuous financing climate for technology start-ups. Many companies have faced difficulties raising subsequent rounds of venture capital over the last six months as investors look for progress in revenue growth and profit — items which, in recent years, have often taken a back seat to promoting high user growth.

Slack has promoted its early emphasis on paid customer accounts that accompany early user growth, noting that more than 800,000 users pay for the service.

The round, which brings Slack’s total venture financing to $540 million, was led by the new investors Thrive Capital with participation from GGV and Comcast Ventures, along with a cohort of existing investors including Accel Partners and Spark Growth.

“We believe Slack will define the future of seamless communication in an increasingly complex world across platforms, teams and applications,” Josh Kushner, managing partner at Thrive Capital, said in a statement.

Slack, begun in 2013 by Mr. Butterfield and a handful of other entrepreneurs, was the byproduct of a failed attempt to create a big multiplayer online game called Glitch, which was released in 2011. The team used an internal version of group chat to communicate with one another while building the game. When Glitch was shuttered in 2012, Mr. Butterfield and his partners made the communication software the primary product offering.

Over the last few years, Slack has swollen to serve 2.7 million daily active users, including companies like Samsung, Spotify, eBay and the United States Department of State.

But critics warn that while Slack may have traction with tech companies and small start-ups, it could be difficult for the company to attract the even larger corporations that would provide significant repeat revenue over time.

Recently, the ride-hailing service Uber dropped Slack because the service could not handle the thousands of Uber employees trying to communicate simultaneously, according to people who work at both companies.

Slack must also compete with collaboration software companies like Atlassian, which went public in December and now has a market capitalization of around $5.3 billion, as well as companies like Campfire and Yammer, the latter of which is owned by Microsoft.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section B, Page 2 of the New York edition with the headline: Slack, a Leading Unicorn, Raises $200 Million More. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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