Trello, a popular project management tool used by companies of all sizes and particularly popular among techies, is being acquired by Atlassian for $425 million. A vast majority of the transaction will be paid in cash, $360 million, with the remainder in restricted shares and options.
Started back in 2011, Trello claims to serve 19 million users, including employees at such companies as National Geographic, Pixar, Adobe Systems and Google. The startup has a host of competitors in the market including Asana, Wrike, and Microsoft’s Planner.
In a blog post, Trello’s Michael Pryor wrote:
“We launched Trello five years ago at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco. At the time, the way people work was starting to shift. Smartphones began to change the way we connected and how we communicated with each other. People expected the tools they use at work to be as fun and easy to use as those in their personal lives. In the business world, the culture of teamwork began to change from face time and meetings to the rise of digital collaboration tools that let teammates collaborate anywhere, anytime.”
When it launched in 2011, it was part of the Fog Creek Software and in 2014 it turned into a stand-alone company. Over the last couple of years, the startup has evolved significantly and managed to acquire 19 million users who depend on it for collaboration and project management. Now that the startup is becoming part of the larger company, it is hard to predict how it will turn out for the both companies. For now, around 100 of Trello employees will join Atlassian. Mike Cannon-Brookes of Atlassian wrote:
“Trello will become an important part of the Atlassian portfolio, offering a fun new way for teams to organize the often messy range of information that feeds into great teamwork. Its card system is intuitive, easy to use, and instantly familiar, which has made it extremely popular with teams across marketing, legal, HR, sales and beyond.”
That said, Atlassian already have a couple of products that overlap Trello's and both the companies have common users in many instances.
The acquisition is expected to close by March 31, 2017.
