Published on the 16/09/2014 | Written by Beverley Head
Sydney-based software company Atlassian chose to release strong financial results that position the company well for any future share market listing during its Silicon Valley user summit this month…
A day before being named the best place to work in Australia in the annual BRW awards, software company Atlassian released a strong set of financials.
Revenues for the year to the end of June surged 44 percent to $US215 million. The company also revealed that it added 9000 new customers during the year; today almost 40,000 organisations use Atlassian software to help them build software and support customers including the likes of Coca-Cola, NASA and Audi.
According to co-CEO and co-founder Scott Farquhar: “Atlassian’s combination of work and project management, content collaboration and real-time communications is the key to unlocking the potential for teams to have an extraordinary impact on their products, services, companies and industries. We’re honoured to help teams at companies as diverse as Tesla to Tesco work better together.”
Farquhar and his co-CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes have built the company over the last 12 years into Australia’s premier software shop. They have also continued to build their wealth.
The 2014 BRW Rich List estimated that Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes were worth just over $A1 billion apiece. Its calculation was based on the $A161 million minority stake that US investment firms took in Atlassian this April, and the value that then ascribed to the co-founders’ shares.
The next big financial step for the business is likely to be a public listing. While both men are strongly supportive of making Sydney the nation’s technology hub, Atlassian has been expanding its US footprint, and this year also moved the firm’s headquarters to London.
That has been interpreted as being a move intended to position the company for a US rather than Australian Stock Exchange float. However Cannon-Brookes in particular has in recent months hosed down speculation that a float could be imminent, saying that the firm could remain private for many years to come.
However even happy employees, many of whom are also shareholders, may be keen to see more liquidity surrounding their Atlassian stakes.
Internationally the company has almost 1000 staff, and seven global offices following the opening of operations in Manila and Austin during the last year.
