Atlassian is acquiring the Browser Company

Summary

Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and CEO of Atlassian, speaks at the National Electrical Vehicle Summit in Canberra, Australia, on Aug. 19, 2022. Cannon-Brookes is urging Australia to show more ambition on climate action, even as the new government legislates plans to strengthen the country's carbon emissions cuts.Hilary Wardhaugh | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAtlassian said it has agreed to acquire The Browser Co., a startup that offers a web browser with artificial intelligence features, for $610 million in cash.The companies aim to close the deal in Atlassian's fiscal second quarter, which ends in December.Established in 2019, The Browser Co. has gone up against some of the world's largest companies, including Google, with Chrome, and Apple, which includes Safari on its computers running MacOS.The startup debuted Arc, a customizable browser with a built-in whiteboard and the ability to share groups of tabs, in 2022. The Dia browser, a simpler option that allows people to chat with an AI assistant about multiple browser tabs at once, became available in beta in June.Atlassian co-founder and CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said he sees shortcomings in the most popular browsers for those who do much of their work on computers."Whatever it is that you're actually doing in your browser is not particularly well served by a browser that was built in the name to browse," he said in an interview. "It's not built to work, it's not built to act, it's not built to do."Cannon-Brookes said Arc has helped him feel like he can manage his work, with its ability to organize tabs and automatically archive old ones.But only a small percentage of people who used The Browser Co.'s Arc adopted the program's special features."Our metrics were more like a highly specialized professional tool (like a video editor) than a mass-market consumer product, which we aspired to be closer to," Josh Miller, The Browser Co.'s co-founder and CEO, said in a newsletter update. The startup stopped building new featu...