Atlassian files ‘no bullshit’ pitch to US Securities and Exchange Commission

Atlassian has filed its prospectus with the US SEC, outlining its homespun values, including ‘Don’t #@!% the customer’.

Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

Atlassian, the Sydney technology that is set to become one of the hottest technology properties on the Nasdaq and make its young founders instant billionaires, has some homespun values.

“Don’t #@!% the customer,” it said in a prospectus lodged with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Co-founders and joint CEOs Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar touted their company values of “no bullish*t”, declaring this policy had made the company profitable over the last decade.

Other principles include “build with heart and balance”, “play as a team” and the company urges ­employees to “be the change you seek”. “Our culture is at the foundation of everything we do and fuels our business strategy and success,” the firm said in its SEC prospectus. “Our culture of innovation, transparency and dedication to customer service drives our success in implementing and refining this unique approach.”

As the Australian software company prepares to officially open its doors to external investors, it filed a long-awaited registration statement with the US SEC yesterday, offering an unspecified number of class A ordinary shares.

While a valuation was not placed on the company, the documents confirmed that Mr Cannon-Brookes and Mr Farquhar each hold 37.2 per cent of the firm.

Based on a recent valuation from a private funding round, each are worth $US1.05 billion ($1.5bn) on paper, with the company ­recently valued at more than $US3.3bn.

This makes Atlassian Australia’s first bona fide technology unicorn, a company worth more than $1bn. Founded in 2002 in Sydney and initially financed with credit card debt, Atlassian makes teamwork software, a mission reflected in its choice of ticker symbol “TEAM”. The company said it was targeting the “Fortune 500,000 not the Fortune 500”, and its next long-term goal was to reach 100 million active users. According to the prospectus, Atlassian has 48,000 “organisations that have at least one active and paid (product) licence or subscription for which they paid more than $US10 per month.”

“With over 750 million information workers worldwide, we believe there are enormous ­markets for our products,” the founders said.

Atlassian’s key products are JIRA, a project management tool and Confluence, a content creation and collaboration app, which together make up two-thirds of its revenues.

Company revenue for the ­fiscal year ended June 30 was $US319.5m, up nearly 50 per cent from $US215.1m in 2014.

Net profit fell by about two-thirds to $US6.8m, down from $US19m the year before, but the company continued to grow ­revenue this quarter. For the quarter ended September 30 ­revenue rose to $US101.8m from $US67.9m, while net profit rose to $US5.1m from $US3.6m.

In what could be viewed as a shot at its competitors, Atlassian said in its prospectus that it was heavily focused on innovation and improving its products rather than self-promotion.

“Relative to other enterprise software companies, we invest significantly more in research and development than in sales and marketing,” it said.

Principal shareholders include Accel Partners, which holds 12.5 per cent of the ­company and was the sole venture capital investor in 2010 when Atlassian raised $US60m. Accel General Partner Rich Wong is on the company’s board and he will emerge with a 7.2 per cent stake in the company.

The company, which has more than 1300 staff globally, is incorporated in London following a headquarter shift in February last year, and has a dual-class share structure under which the founders will retain tight control.

Atlassian also provides equity grants to some employees every year, even shipping a physical box including a bottle of Dom Perignon and confetti, along with a handwritten letter that documents the equity they’re being rewarded with. The prospectus did not clarify how much Atlassian’s employees stand to gain after a successful listing.

The company is not commenting further but Mr Cannon-Brookes told The Australian last month that a US listing would still be a big win for the Australian tech sector. “I think where people do have two options, I think that they would probably choose the US exchanges for the right reasons,” he said.