Atlassian acquires US start-up HipChat

Australian software giant Atlassian has acquired US-based instant messaging network HipChat for an undisclosed sum, with plans to incorporate HipChat into its ever-increasing portfolio.

Based in San Francisco, HipChat is a private instant messaging network for companies, organisations and teams. It was founded by Pete Curley, Garret Heaton and Chris Rivers.

HipChat has more than 1200 customers – including Groupon, HubSpot and WIRED – many of whom are already part of Atlassian’s customer base.

Atlassian was founded in Sydney in 2002 by Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar. The company makes business enterprise software, targeted at software developers.

Its acquisition of HipChat will see all three founders relocate to Atlassian’s US office, also in San Francisco. The financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.

Cannon-Brookes wrote in a company blog that he was “thrilled” by the acquisition.

“HipChat is incredible… Its use absolutely exploded at Atlassian, demonstrating the viral adoption potential of a modern communication system for teams.”

“Our mission at Atlassian is to empower product teams everywhere with incredible products that help them collaborate and communicate better. HipChat fits that mission like no other product we’ve found.”

Cannon-Brookes said HipChat has no advertisements, obscure screen names or failed file transfers. Instead, users collaborate in real-time with colleagues and clients in chat rooms.

“[Users share] information like chats, images and automatic updates from integrated products, like JIRA or Confluence,” he said.

“HipChat stores full conversation history, so anyone new that joins a room can catch up and participate in the discussion.”

“It also supports all the modern social conventions, like @mentions, to help direct specific messages to specific people quickly and easily.”

Cannon-Brookes said HipChat also has a powerful API and comes “loaded” with integrations to popular products, including Atlassian’s own Bitbucket and Bamboo.

Atlassian has already released new integrations for its most popular products including JIRA, Confluence, FishEye and Crucible.

According to Curley, Atlassian provides the perfect environment to scale the HipChat business.

“The no-friction business model, the customer base, the culture, the free beer – all things that are perfectly aligned with where we want to take the business,” Curley said in a statement.

“A huge reason we decided to join up with Atlassian is that they’re just as pumped as us to see HipChat turn into the instant messaging powerhouse we all dream of.”