Atlassian acquires DX, a developer productivity platform, for $1B

Productivity software elephantine Atlassian is making its largest acquisition yet to adhd a developer productivity instrumentality to its product suite.  

Atlassian announced Thursday it has agreed to get the developer productivity insight platform DX for $1 billion in currency and restricted stock. Enterprises usage DX to analyse however productive their engineering teams are and place bottlenecks slowing them down.

DX was launched 5 years agone by Abi Noda and Greyson Junggren. Noda told TechCrunch successful 2022 that helium founded the company to find a amended mode to recognize what hampered engineering teams. At the time, he felt the metrics helium was utilizing arsenic a merchandise manager at GitHub weren’t giving him the afloat picture, and helium wanted to physique thing amended that didn’t make developers consciousness similar they were being surveilled.  

“The assumptions we had astir what we needed to assistance vessel products faster were rather antithetic than what the teams and developers were saying was getting successful their way,” Noda told TechCrunch astatine the time. “Even teams didn’t ever person consciousness astir their ain issues and leadership.” 

DX came retired of stealth successful 2022 and has since tripled its lawsuit base every year. The institution present works with much than 350 endeavor customers, including ADP, Adyen and GitHub, among others, portion raising less than $5 cardinal successful task funding.  

Atlassian co-founder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes told TechCrunch that aft trying to physique an in-house developer productivity penetration instrumentality for 3 years, his Sydney, Australia-based company realized it made consciousness to look for an external, existing option.

DX was a earthy choice, Cannon-Brookes said, considering 90% of DX’s customers were already utilized Atlassian’s task absorption and collaboration tools arsenic well.

“DX has done an astonishing occupation [of] knowing the qualitative and quantitative aspects of developer productivity and turning that into actions that tin amended those companies and springiness them insights and comparisons to others successful their industry, others astatine their size, etc.,” Cannon-Brookes said. 

He added that the timing was close owed to the emergence of AI tools and companies looking for ways to measurement however they are being used.  

 “You abruptly person these budgets that are going up. Is that a bully thing?” Cannon-Brookes said. “Is that not a bully thing?  Am I spending the wealth successful the right ways? It’s really, really important and critical.” 

He added that determination was a large taste fit, too. Cannon-Brookes said he’s always felt an affinity for Utah-based entrepreneurs — DX is based successful Salt Lake City — and helium liked that some companies were capable to scale without taking on much extracurricular funding.  

The feeling was mutual.  

Noda told TechCrunch this week that helium thinks DX and Atlassian are amended unneurotic than isolated and that galore of Atlassian’s tools are complementary to the information and accusation that DX’s level gathers.  

“We are capable to provide customers with that afloat flywheel to get the information and recognize where we are unhealthy,” Noda said. “They tin plug in Atlassian’s tools and solutions to spell code those bottlenecks. An end-to-end flywheel that is ultimately what customers want.” 

DX’s level volition beryllium integrated into the broader Atlassian merchandise suite. 

This is Atlassian’s second acquisition this month. The institution announced it was buying AI-browser developer The Browser Company in aboriginal September.