Slack secures Melbourne launch pad

Group messaging app secures Melbourne lease, will launch in Australia in just weeks.

Group messaging app Slack.

Slack, the group messaging app and current Silicon Valley darling, will launch in Australia in just a few short weeks, having secured a lease on a property in Melbourne.

The US tech company’s founder Stewart Butterfield, in an exclusive interview with The Australian, confirmed the Melbourne office would be open by mid-January.

“We looked at a lot of places for our first office in Australasia. It came down to Singapore and Melbourne. There’s a ton of factors that go into it for us … but the biggest driver is the possible employee base,” Mr Butterfield told The Australian.

“Melbourne has a little bit less competition than some other centres for talent but a very well-educated, English-speaking population that would make great employees for us.”

Melbourne’s “cool night-life” was another factor in choosing the city, Butterfield said.

Following a soft opening on January 15, Slack expects to be ready for a full, polished opening by March 1, with capacity for 70 employees.

Mr Butterfield, who previously co-founded the photo service Flickr, also commented on Malcolm Turnbull’s recent remarks that he wants cabinet to communicate using Slack.

“It was obviously very exciting for us … I definitely applaud him, not so much for the use of Slack specifically, but for trying to move communication of government at that level forward,” he told The Australian.

Slack is one of Silicon Valley’s so-called “unicorns”-- companies valued at $1 billion-plus — and is currently valued at $US2.8bn after raising $340 million to date.

An overnight success, Slack officially launched in February 2014 and already has offices in Vancouver and Ireland. The office-chat service has seen tremendous growth since launch and currently has 1.7 million daily active users, including 480,000 paid users, and over 250 employees.