What is Atlassian?
Atlassian is an Australian software company founded in Sydney in 2002 by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. It is best known for Jira, a tool that helps teams track tasks, bugs and projects.
The founders met at the University of New South Wales and started the company with a credit card debt of about 10,000 dollars. Their first product, Jira, was designed to help software developers track issues.
Atlassian also created Confluence, a workspace for documents, and later bought products such as Trello and Bitbucket. Its tools are used by thousands of companies worldwide.
Global success
Atlassian listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2015, becoming one of Australia's most valuable technology companies.
Cannon-Brookes is also known for climate activism and large investments in renewable energy, including the planned Sun Cable project to export solar power from Australia to Singapore.
Farquhar stepped down as co-CEO in 2024, leaving Cannon-Brookes to lead the company alone. Atlassian's success inspired many Australian technology start-ups and helped show that a global software business could be built from Sydney.
Did You Know?
Atlassian's name comes from Atlas, the Titan from Greek mythology who held up the sky.