Salesforce acquired Slack in 2021 for approximately $27.7 billion in an acquisition combining cash and Salesforce shares.
Slack was created by Stewart Butterfield, Cal Henderson, Eric Costello, and Serguei Mourachov. It launched publicly in 2013 and organized workplace communication into channels, direct messages, searchable files, and integrations.
Salesforce announced the transaction in December 2020, and it closed in July 2021. Slack became a Salesforce product while continuing to operate under its own name and serving as a collaboration layer alongside Salesforce’s customer-relationship software.
The purchase was announced during a period when remote and hybrid work had increased demand for digital collaboration. It is separate from Microsoft Teams, which competes with Slack but was developed internally by Microsoft.