Atlassian acquires Loom

Some relatively big news in the VC/startup world as Atlassian announced that they are acquiring Loom for $975M.

Loom makes a great product that we use at Secfi. In a nut shell, it’s a way to record a video of yourself and your desktop like you would be on a Zoom. Once those videos are recorded, you can send it internally or externally. At Secfi, we use it to send instructions or a walkthrough to our clients in lieu of setting up time for a call. We also use it to communicate async internally. It’s a great product and we’ve been happy with it.

The acquisition price comes in a bit below the Series C at $1.5B in 2021. While maybe not the outcome they envisioned when they raised that round a couple years ago, it’s still a great exit for the employees and most of the VCs. The acquisition clears the preferred stack and employees who hold common stock will have a sizeable payout from their shares.

I am not tied into Loom at all besides being a user. But my guess is that the acquisition comes at a fork in the road. They have a great product that has grown significantly and continues to grow, but growth is likely slowing. So they had a choice to make.

In order to continue to grow, they would likely need to create new products. And if they had an IPO in mind, they likely would’ve had to go down the “platform” route that combines all those products. I assume at some point, they felt that they were best joining forces with Atlassian instead.

Congratulations to the Loom team on getting to an exit!