Slack could publicly file its S-1 this week in a major step toward an IPO

• Slack could publicly file for its long-awaited IPO as soon as Friday, Business Insider has confirmed. 
• The timing of Slack's upcoming S-1, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, puts the company on track to go public in May or June.
• Slack, which was last privately valued at $7 billion, is expected to IPO using a direct listing — an unconventional method in which shareholders sell their stakes directly to the public.

Workplace chat app Slack is expected to publicly file the S-1 paperwork for its long-awaited IPO as soon as Friday, Business Insider has confirmed.

The timing of Slack's S-1 was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The timing puts the company on track to go public in May or June.

Slack, which was last privately valued at $7 billion, will likely disclose that the company is on track to generate $500 million in revenue this year, according to the Journal.

The company is expected to list using the unconventional method of a direct listing, used for the first (and, so far, only) time in Spotify's IPO last year. Direct listings let existing shareholders, such as investors and employees, sell their stock directly on the stock market to the public. Unlike in a conventional IPO, Slack won't raise any money or sell any shares in the process.

Read more: A Nasdaq executive says companies are rushing to get their IPOs out before Trump goes up for re-election

Slack is the latest in the parade of unicorn tech companies, named such for their $1 billion-plus valuations, to go public this year.

Ride-hailing company Lyft started off the heard at the end of March with an IPO that valued the company at $21 billion. It was followed by the IT management company PagerDuty, which was valued at $1.76 billion. Then last Thursday, there were two big public offerings: the video conferencing company Zoom, with a $9 billion valuation, as well online scrapbooking platform Pinterest, which was valued at $10 billion.

SEE ALSO: $9.2 billion Zoom's second most powerful shareholder thinks CEO Eric Yuan is like Steve Jobs, but nicer

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Contributer : Tech Insider http://bit.ly/2PrPaSI

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