Atlassian is betting on the future of work inside the browser. The Australian software giant has agreed to acquire The Browser Co., the New York-based startup behind Arc and Dia, for $610 million in cash, with the deal expected to close by December, according to a report by CNBC.
Founded in 2019, The Browser Co. set out to reinvent web browsing, competing with industry titans Google (Chrome) and Apple (Safari). Its flagship product, Arc, introduced features like a built-in whiteboard, collaborative tab sharing, and automatic tab archiving. More recently, the company launched Dia, a lightweight browser that lets users chat with an AI assistant across multiple tabs.
Atlassian CEO and co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes argued that traditional browsers aren’t designed for modern workflows. “Whatever it is that you’re actually doing in your browser is not particularly well served by a browser that was built to browse,” he said, praising Arc’s ability to help organise and streamline digital work.
Yet adoption of Arc’s advanced features remained niche. “Our metrics were more like a highly specialized professional tool than a mass-market consumer product,” The Browser Co. CEO Josh Miller admitted in a recent update. The company even paused new development on Arc, sparking speculation about an open-source release.
Atlassian plans to merge Arc’s power-user tools with Dia’s AI capabilities and its own enterprise expertise. The aim: a browser optimised for productivity, collaboration, and intelligent assistance, not just navigation.
The deal follows reports that Perplexity and OpenAI had also explored acquiring The Browser Co., with Perplexity even bidding $34.5 billion for Google’s Chrome. For Atlassian, though, the focus is less about headline-grabbing moves and more about integrating browsers into its suite of workplace software.
With backing from investors like Salesforce Ventures, Reid Hoffman and Dylan Field, The Browser Co. was last valued at $550 million.
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