Published on the 17/02/2015 | Written by Beverley Head
Sydney-born software business Atlassian has taken a step closer to a US market listing, further beefing up its executive team…
Over the last three years Atlassian, which develops and sells collaboration software including the well-known Confluence, Jira and HipChat systems, has been honing itself for a US float. Although much of its development effort remains in Australia the company has moved a slab of operations to San Francisco after first setting up an office there in 2005.
Atlassian last week announced that Erik Bardman had joined the company as chief financial officer.
Bardman has a wealth of experience leading the financials of a series of both private and public companies, and joins the company’s San Francisco team.
Atlassian has over the last five years beefed up its executive team with seasoned US executives and also boosted its board, although the latter remains a female-free zone.
In the last 12 months Cisco executive, Didier Moretti, was brought in as vice president and general manager of the company’s service desk business while Citrix veteran, Bernardo de Albergaria, was made vice president and general manager of the company’s collaboration software business.
Scott Farquhar, co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian said that the appointment of Bardman was important in helping the company achieve its goals over the next decade.
Farquhar’s business partner and co-CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes added that Bardman’s “private and public company experience will be a huge asset as we continue our growth trajectory as a private company but operate the business as public-market ready”.
While it’s hard to gauge what price the market would put on the company, the purchase last year of 4.5 percent of the company for US$150 million by T. Rowe Price and Dragoneer Investment Capital suggested a valuation at that time of US$3.3 billion.
Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes started Atlassian in 2002, using $10,000 in credit card debt to create the collaboration software now used by 43,000 customers around the world. Profitable for the last ten years Atlassian reported revenues of US$215 million for the last financial year, up 44 percent on the previous year.
