Australia-based software development technology provider Atlassian launched a corporate venture capital fund, Atlassian Ventures, on Wednesday with $50m in capital.
Founded in 2002, Atlassian provides a range of software products including software development tool Jira, online workspace Confluence, code management platform Bitbucket and Trello, the workplace collaboration platform it bought for $425m in 2017.
Areas of interest for Atlassian Ventures include early-stage developers of enterprise collaboration applications that could be added to Atlassian’s app marketplace, innovative cloud software providers and established companies with products that could interact with its existing offering.
The company has already made a few VC investments, backing a $115m series F round for design software provider InVision in late 2018 and a $33m series C for software debugging platform developer Split last month.
Atlassian Ventures is launching with a seven-strong portfolio that includes hitherto undisclosed stakes in publicly-listed video communication platform developer Zoom and enterprise messaging software provider Slack.
The unit’s standard investment structure will consist of a $250,000 convertible note with a $6m cap per company. It has a global mandate but is not interested in taking board seats.
Chris Hecht, head of corporate development for Atlassian, said: “Atlassian Ventures will facilitate our continued investment in the best-of-breed tools and integrations our customers need to fuel the next wave of innovation and manage their work, both now and into the future.
“Similarly, we want to elevate the entrepreneurs who are betting big on us. Companies funded by Atlassian Ventures will receive mentorship from our executive team and global exposure at Atlassian events in addition to the capital they need to grow.”
