Another day, another mini storm as global tech leader moves HQ from marginal ecosystem to one where they get better access to the things they need. Nice to be reminded that this happens all over the world, not just in Shoreditch.
“Woe is me as large growing technology company moves HQ to more tech savvy city with better access to capital” Alert.
Atlassian is a decent sized company on any measure: 900 employees, >$100 million revenue, bootstrapped before raising $60 million in venture funding from Accel. Born and raised in Sydney, Australia. And now they are moving their HQ to London in order to improve their access to capital (and likely customers). The Australian Financial Review
“But the plans to relocate its headquarters caused concern among the technology start-up community, with suggestions it was indicative of an exodus of companies to economies more conducive to tech start-ups such as the UK and Israel.”
Scott Farquhar, CEO and co-Founder of Atlassian said,
“As we head towards being a public company, which at some stage is most likely in our future – most technology companies go public at some stage – we thought it would be best prepared for a global investor base.” Mr Farquhar said there were no plans to change the tax structure, which has seen the company recognise $US641 million ($709 million) in export revenue since he and co-chief Mike Cannon-Brookes founded Atlassian in 2002. But he said it had become difficult and expensive to find enough experienced graduates to take up developer positions, leading to the company hiring more developers in the United States, and opening a new development centre in Vietnam, where high school students are required to take computer science courses.
So one of Australia’s finest technology exports is shifting the focus of its operations in response to increased demand and price of talent in its home location, to get better access to money and customers. It seems that wherever you are in the world, you run the risk that as you grow, the ecosystem that spawned you will one day be horrified that your business has grown beyond the level that it can support effectively.
And nice to see a high profile, global technology company choose London as its global base.