*By Carlo Versano*
Slack, the popular workplace communication tool, is now valued at more than $7 billion.
The company announced Tuesday it closed a new $427 million funding round, making it one of the most valuable privately held tech start-ups ー and strengthening its position against tech titans like Microsoft, Google, and Cisco, all of which have their own enterprise products competing in the space.
San Francisco-based Slack, which allows members to talk in private chats and group channels, [said in a blog post](https://slackhq.com/slack-raises-series-h-round-of-financing-from-new-investors) it would use the capital investment to grow its business, which now has more than 8 million daily active users and 70,000 organizations paying for access.
The new valuation, up almost 40 percent from the $5.1 billion it was worth last year, makes Slack more valuable than Vice Media, fintech firm Robinhood, and online sports marketplace Fanatics, according to CBInsight's [Global Unicorn Club](https://www.cbinsights.com/research-unicorn-companies).
The funding round was led by General Atlantic and Dragoneer Investment Group and included T. Rowe Price, Wellington Management, Baillie Gifford and Sands Capital. Last year, Slack got a $200 million cash infusion from [Softbank's Vision Fund](https://www.recode.net/2017/9/18/16324754/softbank-slack-investment), the massive venture capital fund that has pumped billions into some of the most high-profile unicorns in Silicon Valley. It's raised more than $1 billion to date.
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
