Atlassian to acquire AgileCraft for enterprise agile planning

Atlassian on Monday announced plans to plans to acquire AgileCraft, a Texas-based firm that helps large enterprises scale the benefits of agile teamwork across the company. The acquisition is valued at approximately $166 million, comprising approximately $154 million in cash with the remainder in Atlassian restricted shares. The deal is expected to close in April.

AgileCraft's software was effectively created to add value to Jira, Atlassian's flagship product, and the overwhelming majority of AgileCraft customers today use it with Jira. Companies that already use both AgileCraft and Atlassian include Anthem, AT&T, Dimension Data, Fidelity and Nielsen.

While Jira helps engineering and IT teams plan and execute work, AgileCraft helps connect those teams and gives business leaders a better view of how their work collectively drives strategic outcomes.

"As organizations get bigger... the challenge of having teams work together at scale is harder and harder,"  Cameron Deatsch, VP of Product at Atlassian, said to ZDNet.

Addressing that challenge has been the top request of Atlassian's enterprise customers in recent years, Deatsch said. As he spoke with enterprise customers about it, AgileCraft's solution repeatedly came up.

Atlassian already serves more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500, and in recent years, the company has worked on adding support and services for large enterprises. That includes Premier Support services, Enterprise Advocate teams, as well as more enterprise-grade versions of its products that offer benefits like higher availability and better administration.

"Over the past five to 10 years, as big companies have gone from deploying at Atlassian at team or department levels, they're looking to standardize, looking for more higher-value solutions from us," Deatsch said.

With the AgileCraft acquisition, Deatsch said Atlassian will be able to offer not only technology at scale but also more business value.

The deal follows a couple other recent acquisitions. On October 1, Atlassian closed its acquisition of Opsgenie, whose technology enables companies to better plan for and respond to IT service disruptions. During its second quarter, Atlassian also acquired Butler for Trello, one of Trello's most popular integrations.