Microsoft considered $8B bid for Slack, but Bill Gates and Satya Nadella said no

By Jason Hahn March 5, 2016

Albertus Engbers/123rf

Slack, the real-time communication and collaboration platform, was close to receiving a bid from Microsoft that would have blown recent valuations out of the water. However, the idea failed to receive enough support internally at Microsoft, according to a report from TechCrunch.

Microsoft contemplated a bid as large as $8 billion for Slack, according to TechCrunch. Co-founder, technology adviser, and board member Bill Gates; and CEO Satya Nadella were among those who weren’t on board with the proposed move.

Rather than try to acquire Slack, which recently announced plans to enter Skype’s airspace with its own VoIP and video chat features, Microsoft will forge ahead by enhancing Skype to be a stronger competitor to Slack, at the behest of Gates.

Slack recently announced that it has 2.3 million daily active users, more than 675,000 paid seats, and more than $64 million in annual recurring revenue. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was looking to raise about $150 million, which would give it a valuation close to $5 billion. Slack, which recently celebrated its second year, has raised a total of $340 million in funding so far.

Microsoft has two acquisitions under its belt already this year: mobile app development platform Xamarin and mobile keyboard app maker SwiftKey.

Microsoft and Slack both declined to offer TechCrunch comments on this story.

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Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

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