Atlassian co-chief executive Mike Cannon-Brookes says the enterprise software maker's largest acquisition of $US425 million ($577 million) for US-based Trello will "expand our drive into business teams" around the world.
"It's a fantastic product and team that has a mission that is very, very aligned to what Atlassian is trying to do in terms of changing the way that teams work," Mr Cannon-Brookes told The Australian Financial Review from Arizona.
Mr Cannon-Brookes signalled that future acquisitions were likely following the Trello deal.
The agreed takeover is Atlassian's 18th bolt-on acquisition since founders Scott Farquhar and Mr Cannon-Brookes bootstrapped the technology start-up using small credit card loans from 2002.
Trello builds collaboration and productivity software such as digital post-it notes and whiteboards to organise tasks and priorities in professional teams in industries such as finance, human resources, legal marketing and sales.
The New York late-stage start-up has grown quickly to capture 19 million users internationally in the past five years and has about 100 employees.
Sydney-born and Nasdaq-listed Atlassian announced on Monday in the US that it would outlay $US360 million in cash and the remainder in its restricted shares and options for Trello.
The acquisition is expected to be dilutive to earnings per share for fiscal 2017.
Mr Cannon-Brookes, who uses Trello products with other "Atlassians" at work, said they would complement Atlassian's existing suite such as JIRA for project management, Confluence for content sharing and HipChat for messaging in the workplace.
"It fits very well into the Atlassian family in giving customers and teams a choice depending on the type of project they're running and work they have to structure.
"I think they have a very similar culture that we've explored a lot."
Atlassian's share price rose 1.25 per cent to $US25.03 at the close of trade in the US on Monday after the deal was announced.
'Let history be a guide'
Mr Cannon-Brookes said Atlassian would look to further expand through organic research and development. He left open the possibility of future acquisitions.
"We can't comment on that, but let history be a guide perhaps."
Atlassian shares were first widely sold in an initial public offering at $US21 in December 2015, when it clinched a record-breaking $US4.4 billion valuation for an Australian tech firm listing on a public sharemarket.
Underlining its focus on collaboration, Atlassian trades under the ticker name TEAM on the Nasdaq.
Trello, whose users across more than 100 countries include Google, National Geographic, John Deere, the United Nations and Red Cross, will remain a standalone service after the transaction is closed.
Constellation Research tech analyst Alan Lepofsky said as people look to work in more collaborative ways, the need for structure becomes critical to keep tasks organised and moving towards completion.
"The integration of Trello into Atlassian's portfolio will enable their customers to structure projects, assign tasks, and prioritise work in context with the content, colleagues and conversations taking place in Jira, HipChat and Confluence," he said.
Trello launched in 2011 and was spun out of New York's project management tool maker Fog Creek Software in 2014. Its venture capital investors have included BoxGroup, Index Ventures and Spark Capital.
Shared goal
Atlassian is already present in 170 countries and has more than 65,000 organisations using its software including Citigroup, eBay, Coca-Cola and NASA.
Trello chief executive Michael Pryor said in a statement: "We share Atlassian's mission of unleashing the power of all teams.
"Atlassian's deep investments in research and development will help augment Trello's product offering. And the broader team collaboration portfolio Trello will integrate with will let us help customers in new and exciting ways."
The transaction is due to be finished by March 31, subject to certain closing conditions and regulatory clearance.
Atlassian will report its second quarter financial results on January 19 and provide further details on the acquisition.
