The global trend toward distributed work has been on the rise, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
A distributed workforce includes multiple employees working in different locations, which could be remote offices, headquarters facilities, home offices or in the field. The benefits of remote and distributed teams are not limited to cost savings. Higher levels of productivity, increased retention and employee satisfaction, higher quality applicant pools and entry into new markets are inspiring businesses to look beyond their borders, according to the Remote Workforce Report 2023.
The challenge with hybrid work is finding ways to keep team collaboration high. Organizations are in need of new ways to meet that challenge head on. Giving a boost to team collaboration solutions, Atlassian, a provider of team collaboration and productivity software, is acquiring Loom, the video messaging platform that has amassed more than 25 million users.
Loom is a video messaging platform that helps users communicate through instantly shareable videos. Known for their ease of use, users simultaneously record their desktop screen, camera, and microphone creating rich documentation of institutional knowledge.
When it comes team collaboration with hybrid workforces, Loom has noticed asynchronous, or async, video has been at the forefront of this movement with Loom’s business users recording almost 5 million videos per month.
Async video is a type of video communication that allows users to record and share videos across teams and gives flexibility with where they want to work. It is a communication and collaboration tool that may save time by shortening or cutting meetings, emails and IMs while maintaining the connection.
For Loom customers, the acquisition will bring the benefit of Atlassian’s (News - Alert) platform and portfolio of products, allowing users to plug async video directly into key workflows in Jira and systems of record in Confluence.
“Loom’s vision is to empower everyone at work to communicate more effectively wherever they are, and by joining Atlassian, we can accelerate their mission to unleash the potential of every team,” said Joe Thomas, co-founder and CEO of Loom.
Atlassian’s DevOps, IT service management and work management software helps teams organize, discuss and complete shared work. Atlassian is a go-to place for over 260,000 customers who plan, track and get work done, and the addition of Loom will further elevate the collaboration experience for teams.
Soon, engineers will visually log issues in Jira, leaders can use videos to connect with employees at scale, and sales teams can send tailored video updates to clients and HR teams can onboard new employees with personalized welcome videos.
Furthermore, customers will have the option to transition between video, video transcripts, summaries, documents and the workflows developed from them, providing multiple ways for teams to connect and collaborate.
“Async video is the next evolution of team collaboration, and teaming up with Loom helps distributed teams communicate in deeply human ways,” said Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of Atlassian.
Atlassian will acquire Loom for around $975 million, with $880 million in cash and the rest in equity awards. The deal won't impact Atlassian's share repurchase plans. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of Atlassian's fiscal year 2024, pending regulatory approval. However, it may slightly reduce non-GAAP operating margins in fiscal years 2024 and 2025.
Edited by
Erik Linask
