Mike Cannon-Brookes & Scott Farquhar
Atlassian
Enterprise software behind Jira, Confluence and Trello · Sydney, Australia
Portrait: Atlassian / Wikimedia Commons (CC0)
The founder
Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar met as students at the University of New South Wales. In 2001, Cannon-Brookes emailed classmates asking if anyone wanted to start a tech company after graduation; only Farquhar replied. They founded Atlassian in 2002 with a $10,000 credit-card loan, bootstrapping the company without venture funding through the dot-com downturn.
How it was taken public
Atlassian listed on Nasdaq on December 10, 2015, pricing at $21 a share, raising $462 million at an initial market cap of roughly $4.4 billion — and closing its first trading day up 32% at $27.78, valuing the company near $5.8 billion. The founders retained roughly 37% ownership each via a dual-class share structure, preserving control as Atlassian grew into a $100B+ enterprise software leader.
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In the news
Coverage of the Atlassian deal from independent outlets — read the original reporting, not just our summary.
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