Australian software firm Atlassian files for Nasdaq listing: IPO to raise $354 million

On Monday, Australia’s leading software company Atlassian filed to go public and will list the common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol TEAM.

Goldman, Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley & Co. are the lead joint book-running managers for the offering, with Allen & Co., UBS Securities and Jefferies acting as additional book-running managers. Canaccord Genuity, JMP Securities, Raymond James & Associates and William Blair & Co. will be the co-managers.

However, it is unknown how many shares are going to be offered or the price range as the company is aiming to raise as much as $250 million (AU$354 million) with the offering, reports Computer World. Atlassian is reportedly valued above $3 billion (AU$2.84 billion) in its last private investment round.

Atlassian’s important products are JIRA for team planning and project management; Confluence for team content creation and sharing; HipChat for team messaging and communications: Bitbucket for team code sharing and management; JIRA Service Desk for team services and support applications.

Head quarters moved to UK

Although the development and collaboration software company's main offices are in Sydney and San Francisco, Atlassian moved its official corporate headquarters to the UK in 2014 to stay closer to the global investor base. It pursues a News Corp style dual class share structure which is not permissible at the ASX, which allows the founders to retain control, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.

Though tech upstarts need not be in profit when they file for IPOs, what makes Atlassian special is that the 13-year-old maker of team-collaboration software is profitable for the past 10 fiscal years.

Its revenue, according to the F-1 prospectus, has shown annual growth rate of 46.7 percent from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2015, when it reached $319.5 million (AU452.5 million).

No sales force

Unlike other enterprise software start ups, Atlassian has no sales force and relies entirely on word-of-mouth recommendations, reports New York Times. Atlassian claims a customer base of 51,000 paying customers in 160 countries, including 79 of Fortune 100 and 273 of the Fortune 500 companies. Some of its leading customers are Elon Musk's electric car maker, Tesla Motors and finance companies HSBC and Visa.

"Atlassian is a company that deserves a lot more visibility than they have," said Al Hilwa, a program director with IDC.

The analyst noted the company has achieved "amazing growth" on the strength of organic funding, and added: “To see Atlassian get the visibility of a public company is a plus for the customers and communities that use their software."

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