#Asia Brief: Amazon said to be eyeing Slack for takeover

Photo credit: L’orem.

The news:

Office chat app Slack has reportedly received inquiries about a potential takeover from several companies, particularly Amazon.
A deal could give Slack a valuation of at least US$9 billion, people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg. The company is now valued at US$3 billion, after a US$200 million round in 2016. The parties declined to comment on the report.

Why it matters:

A potential takeover will mark some sort of consolidation in the space, which has seen heated rivalry among tech giants this year.
In February, Amazon itself announced its Chime service, which targets enterprises with its video-conferencing and chat features. Then in March, Google unveiled its new Hangouts app, adding threaded conversations and virtual rooms, while Microsoft introduced its chat-based workspace, Office 365. All these are challenging Slack, which debuted an enterprise version of its software that allows tens of thousands of employees to collaborate across teams.

Source: Bloomberg.

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