Slack buys Woven to boost calendar app offering

Slack Technologies has acquired Woven, a popular calendar app, as it adds features to compete with Alphabet’s Google and Microsoft.

The workplace communications software company said it invested in Woven through its SlackFund. Terms of the transaction weren’t disclosed.

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“We are thrilled to welcome the Woven team to Slack,” Slack said in response to a query. “We’re always on the lookout for top technical talent and are excited to welcome these individuals to Slack. We look forward to what we can accomplish together in Slack’s mission to make people’s working lives simpler, more pleasant and more productive.”

Slack is in the process of being acquired by Salesforce.com, whose chief executive officer Marc Benioff has orchestrated more than 60 acquisitions in 21 years.

Woven’s CEO Tim Campos, who was Facebook’s former chief information officer, also announced the Slack acquisition in its blog. He said he would have liked to maintain Woven for its users but said the move was the “best path forward” as he pursues other plans that he will announce at a later date.

Campos set up the company, which he said scheduled more than 2.2 million events, with Burc Arpat, Woven’s chief technology officer who was a senior software engineer at the social media giant.

“Burc and I decided that our pace wasn’t fast enough to achieve our mission with the current business,” Campos said in the blog. “Slack is tackling issues we care about — productivity and innovation” and are doing it “on a massive scale and with great success.”