Slack prepares to go public with plenty of cash on hand: report

Adam Galica | CNBC

Stewart Butterfield, co-founder and CEO of Slack, at the 2018 WEF in Davos, Switzerland.

Slack has plenty of cash on hand to fuel its reported plans for a direct listing on the public market this year, according to The Information. The company had about $900 million in cash on its balance sheet as of October 2018, according to the report.

The newly reported numbers show Slack, which makes chatting and collaboration software for businesses, may be in a position of strength to circumvent traditional mechanisms for its public debut. With a direct listing, pursued by Spotify last year, Slack would not need to sell new shares during an initial public offering to raise funds. According to the report, Slack projects it would already be free cash flow positive for the 12 months through January 2020. The Information based its reporting on documents viewed by reporters as well as information from a source familiar with the matter.

For the year ended in January 2018, Slack had revenue of $221 million, The Information reported based on early 2018 documents. Slack projected that revenue to increase by 76 percent to $389 million for the year ending January 2019, and then growing 64 percent to $640 million the year after that, according to the documents.

Slack did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Slack is expected to join a slew of tech companies preparing to go public in 2019, including Airbnb, Uber and Lyft.

Read the full report on The Information.

Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

Watch:
In-depth interview with Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield