Amazon interested in buying chat platform Slack - reports

US ecommerce giant Amazon is said to be interested in acquiring workplace messenger service Slack for over $9bn.

The Seattle-based company is mulling an offer for Slack, but it added that Slack is likely to reject any approach for a takeover, according to Bloomberg.

Investors have flocked towards the Silicon Valley startup since its launch in 2013, raising $200m in its latest funding round in 2016. That takes the total funding raised by the company from investors to around $540m.

Amazon has sought to diversify its business over recent years, branching further and further out from its traditional online shopping operations.

The purchase of Slack would allow Jeff Bezos’ firm to add a messaging service to its wide-ranging services, and attempt to compete with larger mainstream chat apps like Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger.

Microsoft recently unveiled its own staff chat platform, Teams, which functions through its Office 365 package.