Presenting the Atlassian Ventures investment agreement

Three years ago, we published Atlassian’s mergers & acquisitions term sheet to reduce friction during acquisitions. That transparency led to shorter negotiation cycles and increased trust because founders know upfront that they’ll be treated fairly. As we scale up Atlassian Ventures (officially known as Atlassian Ventures LLC), we want to provide the same transparency, trust, and efficiency to the founders whose companies we’re investing in.

Today, in the spirit of “Open company, no bullshit,” we’re proud to build on our values-driven approach to partnering with founders by publishing Atlassian Ventures’ investment agreement – also known as a side letter (i.e., the document we use when investing to ensure mutual alignment between founders and Atlassian).

Atlassian Ventures ventures forth

In its first 18 months, Atlassian Ventures has grown into a large-scale venture capital program. We’ve deployed over $140M in capital across 37 companies focused on building the future of collaborative work in the cloud. We’ll keep growing our portfolio over the coming years, so now is the time to create a repeatable, low-friction process for founders when Atlassian invests in their company.

Our experience shows us that the process gets bogged down when negotiating investor terms. As with acquisitions, we want to create an experience that delivers transparent terms and minimizes negotiation time so founders can get back to doing what they do best: building awesome products and companies.

Opening up the Atlassian Ventures investment agreement is another example of doing business through our values. As with our M&A term sheet, we believe it’s important for all Ventures portfolio companies to be on equal footing in terms of their relationship with us. Also, sharing transparent terms continues our 20-year history of putting stakeholders first through easy-to-understand decisions. (Take product pricing as an example: we publish our product prices and terms on our website.)

Consistent and transparent terms

The Atlassian Ventures side letter is designed to build mutual trust and transparency. It offers fair terms, simply stated. Highlights include:

“Major investor” information and pro-rata rights – Atlassian Ventures will be considered a major investor, where we’ll receive access to the same information you provide other major investors. This is typically financial and operational performance metrics, as well as pro-rata investment rights in future rounds. The one additional request is that as you build integrations into Atlassian products, you share with us the number of customers integrating with those products. Otherwise, we ask to be treated fairly and consistently as with other major investors regarding disclosures and pro-rata purchase rights.

Public relations and branding – We ask to approve the use of our name and logo in any public funding announcement, including our logo on your website.

Notice of sale: If you receive a transaction offer from another third party, we ask that you let us know at least five business days before entering into a binding agreement with that third party. We don’t need to know who made the offer or how much it is for, just that there is a proposed offer. This helps us support you, maintains the trusted relationship, and allows Atlassian to consider acquisition if there is strategic alignment.

Get involved with Atlassian Ventures

We invest in companies in three areas where Atlassian can uniquely accelerate growth:

1. Early-stage startups building apps that integrate with our cloud products and are sold through the Atlassian Marketplace.
2. Growth-stage startups deepening their partnerships with Atlassian, from seed to series A-Z.
3. Atlassian channel partners creating new cloud products and services that support the future of teamwork.

Ready to learn more or apply for funding? Start here.