Halp joins Atlassian’s string of acquisitions in recent years
Australian enterprise software corporation Atlassian has acquired Slack-based ticketing help desk solution Halp for an undisclosed amount, the company announced in a blog earlier this week.
Founded in 2017 and based in Boulder, United States, Halp launched its flagship solution last year. Its solution enables the workplace messaging software Slack to be used as an internal help desk solution for organizational teams such as Information Technology (IT), Security, Legal, Finance, and Support.
It uses emoji reactions to convert message requests into tickets, making it easier to compartmentalize and prioritize incoming requests.
Vice-President of Business Development and Corporate Development at Slack Brad Armstrong said in the statement, “With its messaging-first approach to support ticketing, Halp is an outstanding tool for any team already collaborating in Slack channels. We see enormous opportunities in building this business together with Atlassian.”
The move helps to deepen the [Slack-Atlassian strategic partnership that took shape in 2018](https://www.atlassian.com/blog/announcements/new-atlassian-slack-partnership‘), after Atlassian made an investment in Slack. At the time, Slack them acquired the intellectual property rights for Atlassian’s benched real-time communications products Stride and Hipchat.
Atlassian and Slack were former rivals in what was then becoming a crowded market, until Atlassian decided to abandon its messaging communications offerings and invest in Slack instead. Many of its products were integrated with Slack following the deal.
Slack, which saw a COVID-19 induced 80% jump in users in February and March 2020, is also an investor in Halp, and participated in the startup’s seed financing round last year. The $2.6 million round was led by Boulder-based early stage venture fund Matchstick Ventures. Along with Slack’s internal teams, Halp’s enterprise clients include Adobe, Home Depot, Strava, GitHub, and ClassPass.
Atlassian said in the blog that Halp will be further integrated into the company’s IT service management solutions Jira Service Desk and collaborative workspace Confluence, and also potentially offer new features.
Halp also announced the launch of its newest offering Halp Answers, which builds off the base solution, and automates ticket responses in Slack based on the ‘knowledge’ already existing within the company.
The startup also said that Atlassian’s resources will be useful in further developing Halp’s collaborative solutions, and possibly integrating Halp with other Atlassian solutions Opsgenie and Trello in addition to Jira and Confluence.
Halp is Atlassian’s first acquisition of the year. The multinational corp acquired three companies in 2019. It acquired management suite AgileCraft for $166 million, and app developer Good Software and add-on creator Code Barrel for any undisclosed amount, according to Crunchbase data.
The company has made at least one acquisition every year since 2013. It’s highest valued acquisition till date took place in 2017, when the company acquired collaborative project management tool Trello for $425 million.
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