SLACK'S ACQUISITION SPREE: 6 PURCHASES IN 6 YEARS TO COMPETE WITH MICROSOFT AND GOOGLE

Summary from the TLDR Marketing newsletter

Slack used a buy-over-build strategy to quickly match the features of Microsoft and Google by acquiring six companies between 2014 and 2020. These acquisitions helped it add tools like screen sharing, document collaboration, and email integration, allowing it to scale to 12 million daily active users by the end of 2020. Its 2018 deal with Atlassian eliminated competitors HipChat and Stride and led to over 11 joint integrations. By acquiring technologies that reduced context-switching, Slack positioned itself as a unified work hub and ultimately attracted Salesforce, which acquired it in 2020.