Slack Technologies Inc. has taken its direct listing pitch to the road, providing investors with an update on its financials as it seeks to go public with a nontraditional method.

The company officially announced it had lodged its paperwork for a direct listing April 26, saying that it was looking to raise $100 million, a likely placeholder number that will be revised upwards closer to its debut on the New York Stock Exchange.

In an amendment to its initial S-1 listing documentation with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Slack said revenue for the fiscal first quarter ending April 30 will be between $133.8 million and $134.8 million, up from a figure of $80.9 million in the same quarter of 2018.

For the same period, Slack also said that its loss will be between $38.4 million and $39.4 million, an increase thanks to product investments and spending to support growth from $26.3 million a year ago. Slack had previously reported a loss of $139 million for the year ending Jan. 31 on revenue of $401 million in its SEC filing.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Stewart Butterfield (pictured) led Slack’s roadshow, telling investors that companies are shifting from email to team messaging services such as that provided by Slack.

“This shift is inevitable,” Butterfield told CNBC today. “We believe every organization will switch to Slack or something like it.”

Butterfield also told investors that Slack would eventually become a utility similar to the internet or electricity. “The world is going to continue to use more and more software and we deliberately try to put ourselves in a position where Slack the company gets more valuable as the world uses more software because Slack the product becomes more valuable for our customers as that customer uses more software,” Butterfield said.

Slack goes into its direct listing at a time where large, money-losing tech companies are being pummeled by investors. Lyft Inc. was the first to decline post-IPO, and as of today Uber Technologies Inc.’s stock has fallen nearly 20% since going public Friday.

There have been some notable exceptions, with Zoom Video Communications Inc. and Pinterest Inc. both performing strongly, but Zoom is profitable while Pinterest was regarded by investors, losses aside, as having strong prospects.

Slack’s losses are nowhere near the billions bled by Lyft and Uber, but both could have poisoned the well for tech stocks going public, at least in the immediate future. The company will be hoping that the poison will dissipate over the next month before its direct listing scheduled for June 20.

Photo: collisionconf/Flickr