Atlassian Corporation
Company History
Atlassian History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2002 in Sydney, Australia
When was Atlassian founded?
Atlassian was founded in 2002 in Sydney, Australia by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar, making it 24 years old.
- Founded
- 2002
- Founding place
- Sydney, Australia
- Founders
- Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California (founded in Sydney, Australia)
- Milestones documented
- 20 (2002–2026)
- Current CEO
- Mike Cannon-Brookes
- Acquisitions
- 7
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2002 | Company founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar in Sydney |
| 2004 | Launch of Confluence team collaboration platform |
| 2005 | Reaches $1 million in annual revenue with no salespeople |
| 2010 | Raises $60 million from Accel Partners |
| 2012 | Acquisition of HipChat for real-time messaging |
| 2015 | Initial public offering on NASDAQ |
| 2017 | Acquisition of Trello for $425 million |
| 2018 | Launch of Jira Service Management |
| 2020 | Acquisition of Mindville for asset management |
| 2021 | Acquisition of Chartio for data visualization |
| 2022 | Acquisition of Percept.AI for AI virtual agents |
| 2023 | Acquisition of Loom for approximately $975 million |
| 2024 | Launch of Rovo AI assistant |
| 2024 | Server end-of-life forces cloud and data center migration |
| 2025 | Launch of Atlassian Collections |
| 2025 | Announces end of life for Data Center products |
| 2025 | Acquisition of The Browser Company of New York |
| 2025 | Acquisition of engineering intelligence vendor DX |
| 2026 | Restructuring eliminates roles covering about 10% of the workforce |
| 2026 | Rovo reaches over 80% of the Fortune 500 |
- Where was Atlassian founded?
- Atlassian was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2002. wikidata.org
- Who founded Atlassian?
- Atlassian was founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar.
- When did Atlassian come out?
- Atlassian was founded in 2002. The first launch in its timeline is dated 2004: Launch of Confluence team collaboration platform.
- How old is Atlassian?
- Atlassian is 24 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar met while studying at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. In 2002, facing graduation, they started a business largely to avoid taking corporate jobs, funding it with $10,000 of credit card debt and naming it Atlassian after Atlas, the Titan of Greek mythology who holds up the sky. Their first product, Jira, tracked software bugs. Unable to afford a sales team, they published the price on the website and let customers buy directly, which was unusual for enterprise software at the time.
Founders
Mike Cannon-Brookes
Atlassian was founded in 2002 in Sydney, Australia, by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. The founding of the company is a notable departure from the traditional Silicon Valley startup narrative. The two founders were computer science students at the University of New South Wales who had no grand vision of changing the world or disrupting an industry; they simply wanted to avoid putting on a suit and getting a traditional corporate job. They famously set a modest initial goal: to earn $48,500 a year each which was the starting salary of a typical graduate entry-level position at a major accounting firm. Without external venture capital funding, they decided to build software for developers. They funded their early operations through a $10,000 credit card debt. Their first product, Jira, was an issue-tracking tool designed to help software engineers manage bugs and project tasks. It was built specifically to solve their own internal frustrations with the clunky, expensive enterprise software tools that dominated the market at the time. Because they had no money to hire a traditional enterprise sales team they were forced into a profound structural innovation: they had to build software that was so cheap, intuitive, and easy to download that it effectively sold itself over the internet directly to developers. They famously posted their prices publicly on their website, a heresy in the opaque world of B2B software pricing in the early 2000s. This radically transparent, product-led growth strategy was an unexpected success. Without ever taking a dime of traditional Silicon Valley venture capital during their foundational years, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar organically bootstrapped Atlassian into a global leader, eventually executing a successful IPO on the NASDAQ in 2015 and becoming two of the wealthiest self-made individuals in Australian history. Mike Cannon-Brookes was born in 1979 in New Haven. Education: Cranbrook School.
Scott Farquhar
Scott Farquhar co-founded Atlassian in 2002 and served as co-CEO alongside Mike Cannon-Brookes until he stepped down on August 31, 2024, one of the longest co-CEO partnerships among listed technology companies. He oversaw technical and engineering areas of the company's growth, from the original Jira issue tracker to the cloud platform that now serves more than 350,000 customers. He remains a member of Atlassian's board of directors. Entities affiliated with Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes together hold substantially all of Atlassian's Class B common stock, which carries ten votes per share and about 86% of total voting power as of June 30, 2026. Scott Farquhar was born in 1979 in Sydney. Education: James Ruse Agricultural High School.
Key Milestones
Company founded by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar in Sydney
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar founded Atlassian with $10,000 in credit card debt while students at the University of New South Wales. They launched Jira, a bug-tracking and project management tool for software developers.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLaunch of Confluence team collaboration platform
Atlassian launched Confluence, a team collaboration and documentation platform that complemented Jira and expanded the addressable market beyond software development into general team collaboration and knowledge management.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgReaches $1 million in annual revenue with no salespeople
Atlassian reached $1 million in annual revenue entirely through self-service online sales, validating the product-led growth model and demonstrating that enterprise software could be sold without a traditional sales force.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgRaises $60 million from Accel Partners
Atlassian raised its first outside investment, $60 million from Accel Partners, after eight years of bootstrapped growth. The money went to product development and international expansion, not to building a sales force.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of HipChat for real-time messaging
Atlassian acquired HipChat, an enterprise messaging platform, entering the real-time communication market and expanding the product suite beyond project management and documentation.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgInitial public offering on NASDAQ
Atlassian completed its IPO on the NASDAQ Global Select Market, raising $462 million at a valuation of $4.37 billion. Shares were priced at $21 and rose 32% on the first day to close near $28. The ticker symbol TEAM reflected the founders' view that the team is the basic unit of economic output.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of Trello for $425 million
Atlassian acquired Trello, a visual task management platform built on Kanban boards, for $425 million in cash and stock. The deal extended its reach to non-technical teams and smaller organizations, complementing Jira.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLaunch of Jira Service Management
Atlassian launched Jira Service Management, entering the IT service management market and extending Jira from software development into IT operations and service desk work.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of Mindville for asset management
Atlassian acquired Mindville, an IT asset management company, to add asset and configuration management to Jira Service Management for enterprise customers.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of Chartio for data visualization
Atlassian acquired Chartio, a cloud data visualization and analytics company, to improve reporting across the product suite. The standalone Chartio product was later discontinued.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of Percept.AI for AI virtual agents
Atlassian acquired Percept.AI, an AI virtual agent company, to add automated ticket handling to Jira Service Management ahead of its broader AI push.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAcquisition of Loom for approximately $975 million
Atlassian acquired Loom, an asynchronous video messaging platform, for about $975 million, its largest acquisition by announced value, adding recorded video to Jira and Confluence workflows.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLaunch of Rovo AI assistant
Atlassian launched Rovo, an AI assistant embedded across its products, providing search, summarization, automation, and agents that draw on the Teamwork Graph.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgServer end-of-life forces cloud and data center migration
Atlassian ended support for its Server product line in February 2024, requiring remaining on-premises customers to move to either Cloud or Data Center subscriptions.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgLaunch of Atlassian Collections
Atlassian began selling Collections, bundles of apps and AI agents priced around an outcome rather than per product: the Teamwork Collection, Software Collection, Service Collection, and Strategy Collection.
Source: sec.govAnnounces end of life for Data Center products
On September 8, 2025, Atlassian announced the end of life of its Data Center products under a migration program called Atlassian Ascend. New customers could no longer buy Data Center term licenses from March 2026, sales to existing customers stop in March 2028, and maintenance and support end in March 2029. Data Center produced $1.83 billion of fiscal 2026 revenue.
Source: atlassian.comAcquisition of The Browser Company of New York
Atlassian completed the acquisition of The Browser Company of New York, maker of the Dia and Arc browsers, on October 20, 2025, for a total purchase price of $488.3 million, taking the company into enterprise browsers.
Source: businesswire.comAcquisition of engineering intelligence vendor DX
Atlassian acquired A Software Company, which trades as DX, on November 10, 2025 for $720.4 million in cash. DX measures how engineering investment turns into delivered work and is being folded into Atlassian Collections.
Source: sec.govRestructuring eliminates roles covering about 10% of the workforce
Atlassian initiated a second restructuring plan in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, eliminating roles covering approximately 10% of its workforce to fund investment in AI and enterprise sales. Severance and other termination benefits came to $203.9 million and total fiscal 2026 restructuring charges were $285.4 million. Headcount ended the year at 13,301 against 13,813 a year earlier.
Source: sec.govRovo reaches over 80% of the Fortune 500
Atlassian reported that Rovo was in use at over 80% of Fortune 500 companies and that its MCP server and Teamwork Graph CLI passed one million monthly active users in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, more than doubling in a quarter.
Source: atlassian.comMajor Acquisitions
Trello, Inc.
2017Atlassian acquired Trello to expand its reach into non-technical teams and smaller organizations with a visual, intuitive task management platform. Trello's Kanban board approach complemented Jira's structured project management, creating a balanced toolset for both technical and non-technical users.
Loom, Inc.
2023Atlassian acquired Loom to add asynchronous video communication capabilities to the platform, supporting the company's vision of reducing context switching and meetings through integrated communication tools. Loom allowed users to record and share video messages, complementing the text-based collaboration in Jira and Confluence.
Mindville
2020Atlassian acquired Mindville to enhance Jira Service Management with IT asset management capabilities, providing enterprise customers with comprehensive IT service and asset management in a single platform.
Chartio
2021Atlassian acquired Chartio to enhance analytics capabilities across the product suite, providing customers with better insights into their work data and project performance.
Percept.AI
2022Atlassian acquired Percept.AI to enhance Jira Service Management with AI-powered virtual agents for automated customer support, advancing the company's AI strategy before the launch of Rovo.
The Browser Company of New York Inc.
2025Atlassian bought the maker of the Dia and Arc browsers to offer enterprises a browser built for SaaS and AI work, putting its products and the Teamwork Graph into the surface where knowledge workers spend most of their day.
A Software Company (DX)
2025Atlassian acquired DX, which sells engineering intelligence analytics, to give technology leaders data on how engineering investment turns into delivered work and to strengthen its Collections bundles.
Keep researching Atlassian
Atlassian Company History FAQ
What were the major milestones in Atlassian's founding and bootstrap era from 2002 to 2010?
Founded in 2002 on a $10,000 credit card, Atlassian launched Jira in 2002, released Confluence in 2004, reached profitability in its first year without venture capital, and accepted its first $60M investment from Accel Partners in 2010.
When did Atlassian launch the Atlassian Marketplace for third-party developers?
Atlassian launched the Atlassian Marketplace in May 2012, building a multi-billion-dollar app ecosystem where developers sell thousands of plugins and integrations for Jira and Confluence.
What occurred during Atlassian's landmark 2015 NASDAQ IPO?
On December 10, 2015, Atlassian listed on the NASDAQ under ticker 'TEAM', raising $462 million at a $4.4 billion valuation, celebrated for its unique non-GAAP profitable growth and lack of a traditional direct sales force.
How did the 2018 strategic partnership with Slack alter team communication?
In July 2018, Atlassian discontinued its internal chat apps (HipChat and Stride), forming a strategic alliance with Slack, taking an equity stake in Slack, and making Slack the premier chat integration for Jira and Confluence.
When did Atlassian announce the sunset of on-premise Server licenses?
In October 2020, Atlassian announced it would end sales of on-premise Server licenses to focus 100% on cloud architecture, officially terminating all Server support on February 15, 2024.
When did Atlassian launch Atlassian Intelligence and the Teamwork Graph?
In 2023 to 2024, Atlassian introduced Atlassian Intelligence, leveraging OpenAI models and the Teamwork Graph across Jira, Confluence, and JSM, followed by the launch of Atlassian Rovo enterprise search and AI agents.
What leadership transition occurred when Scott Farquhar stepped down as co-CEO in August 2024?
On August 31, 2024, Scott Farquhar stepped down after 22 years as co-CEO to become a Board Director, leaving Mike Cannon-Brookes as the sole Chief Executive Officer of Atlassian.
What are Atlassian's strategic priorities after fiscal 2026?
Atlassian is moving Data Center customers to cloud before support ends in March 2029, scaling Jira Service Management against established IT service management vendors, monetizing Rovo and the Teamwork Graph, and integrating the Dia and Arc browsers and DX engineering analytics acquired in fiscal 2026.
When was Atlassian founded?
Atlassian was founded in 2002 in Sydney, Australia, famously bootstrapping the company using a $10,000 credit card debt.
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