Atlassian has acquired Loom for around $975 million, gaining Loom’s collaboration technology and its 25 million users.
Loom’s Jira and Confluence collaboration tools will be integrated into Atlassian’s software to assist users in leveraging video in their workflows.
According to Atlassian, the acquisition will help its customers to communicate and collaborate more effectively, particularly through Loom’s asynchronous video capabilities.
As Mike Cannon-Brookes, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, said:
“Async video is the next evolution of team collaboration, and teaming up with Loom helps distributed teams communicate in deeply human ways.”
In fact, Loom’s business users record almost five million videos each month through its video messaging platform, which allows users to create instantly shareable videos.
Loom, which was named among the top 50 of Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative companies in 2023, lets users simultaneously record their desktop, screen, camera, and microphone. It has transcripts in more than 50 languages, as well as AI features that can generate titles, summaries, chapters, and tasks.
On top of its 25 million users worldwide, Loom also brings with it 200,000 customers, adding to Atlassian’s 260,000 customers.
Some practical product benefits for Atlassian include Jira enabling engineers to visually log issues, videos being used to connect with employees at scale, sales teams being able to send customised video updates to clients, and HR teams having the capability to onboard employees with personalised welcome videos.
Moreover, their combined investments in AI will allow customers to easily switch between video, video transcripts, summaries, documents, and workflows.
Loom customers will also be able to benefit from Atlassian’s platform and product portfolio, such as plugging async video into key workflows in Kira and systems of record in Confluence.
The two companies share a number of similarities, Atlassian says, including its mission, product-led go-to-market motion, and culture.
Joe Thomas, Co-Founder and CEO at Loom, gave his perspective on the acquisition:
“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.
“We’re excited to weave video into collaboration in a way that only Loom and Atlassian can.”
The Rise of Asynchronous Video
Although no one talks about ‘synchronous video’, it would imply that the video was taking place in real time, as it does for most video meetings. Conversely, ‘asynchronous video’ refers to video that is pre-recorded, providing users with the ability to listen and reply over a longer period of time.
There are advantages to both forms of communication, which mainly revolve around efficiency. Although asynchronous video happens over a larger timeframe, it can, in fact, save time as it elicits responses to specific questions or issues, which cuts out the need for a traditional ‘synchronous’ video meeting. Furthermore, employees can prioritise their responses against their other work obligations.
It seems to be catching on. In August this year, Zoom launched Zoom Clips, a solution enabling asynchronous video conversations by recording and sharing high-quality, short-form videos.
Zoom believes its offering will create more communication possibilities, reduce time inefficiencies, and accommodate collaboration across different time zones.
