Atlassian is buying Arc maker The Browser Company for $610 million

The Browser Company — the maker of the Arc and AI-centric Dia browsers — is set to have a new owner. Atlassian is buying it for around $610 million in an all-cash deal, which it expects to close in the second quarter of its fiscal year 2026 (i.e. by the end of the 2025 calendar year).

According to The Browser Company, it will continue to operate independently as it builds Dia. A private beta for the browser started in June. Arc (a well-regarded browser on which the company has ended active development) and Arc Search will stick around, and a long-term plan for those will be revealed in the near future.

Co-founders Josh Miller and Hursh Agrawal are staying on as CEO and CTO, respectively. Miller wrote in a blog post that they are looking to accelerate their ambitions by teaming up with Atlassian. "We chose Atlassian because their strengths complement our gaps," Miller wrote. "And most importantly, like us, they believe the browser is becoming the new operating system." The Browser Company plans to bring Dia to "to every platform faster than we could have previously imagined" in the coming months.

Miller said the company had three conditions for any acquisition: to ensure it remained independent, that all of its team members still had a job and that its "vision for Dia remains at the center." He added that "a large part of why we chose Atlassian is values. Now more than ever. Not the kind you hang on a wall, but the ones you see in the work itself."

Atlassian is the owner of productivity and enterprise services such as project management apps Jira and Trello (which has been buggy for me for over a year, for what it's worth). Last month, it reportedly laid off around 150 workers, many of whom were said to be in the customer service department, and was said to be planning to use AI to take over some of those former employees' tasks.

"Our vision is to make Dia the AI browser for work," Atlassian CEO Mike Cannon-Brookes said in a video announcing the acquisition. The team is designing Dia so it's "optimized for the SaaS [software as a service] apps where you spend your day; packed with AI skills and your personal work memory to unleash your potential; and built with trust and security in mind, so you can bring it to the office. An AI browser for your system of work."

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/atlassian-is-buying-arc-maker-the-browser-company-for-610-million-145236236.html?src=rss https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/atlassian-is-buying-arc-maker-the-browser-company-for-610-million-145236236.html?src=rss