Atlassian sales surge as Cannon-Brookes makes $356m vote of confidence
Atlassian shares rocketed after revenue jumped 28 per cent and its billionaire founder pledged to buy up to $356m of stock, pushing back against fears AI could gut the software giant.
Mike Cannon-Brookes is betting up to $356 million of his own money that artificial intelligence will supercharge Atlassian rather than eat the software giant’s lunch.
Shares in the Australian-founded company rocketed as much as 39 per cent in New York after fourth-quarter revenue climbed 28 per cent to $US1.77 billion ($2.52b), beating fears the AI boom would erode its business.
Atlassian also forecast first-quarter revenue of between $US1.71b and $US1.72b, ahead of the $US1.67b analysts had expected.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.If the share surge holds when regular trading begins on Friday in the US, it would be Atlassian’s biggest one-day gain since its 2015 listing and add more than $US10b to its market value.
The jump offers a rare reprieve from a brutal year for global software stocks, dubbed the “SaaSpocalypse”, as investors have dumped companies they fear could be steamrolled by increasingly capable AI.
Atlassian shares are still down 32 per cent this year.
Mr Cannon-Brookes argues his customers are starting to show why those fears may be overdone.
Businesses that expanded their Atlassian software or upgraded to bigger packages ranked its AI capabilities among the top two reasons for spending more, he said.
“Intelligence is now a commodity,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said during an investor call. “You can’t hire context by the token.”
Powerful AI models are becoming cheap and widely available but they are far more useful when they understand how a company actually works — its people, projects, decisions and history.
Atlassian reckons that is its moat.
“We have 25 years of data. We have 350,000 organisations across every industry,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said.
Its Jira and Confluence products help businesses manage projects and company information, giving Atlassian a deep bank of knowledge about how teams actually work.
“That depth of context takes decades to build,” he said.
It makes Atlassian a closely watched test case for Australian businesses pouring money into AI.
Customers are already locking in more spending.
Future revenue committed under contracts jumped 44 per cent to almost $US5b, while Atlassian booked a record quarter for deals worth more than $1m, $3m and $5m.
It also landed the biggest contract in its history with an unnamed global consumer technology company.
Mr Cannon-Brookes is worth $US8.4b, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Originally published as Atlassian sales surge as Cannon-Brookes makes $356m vote of confidence
