Latest news with #Atlassian
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
SmartBear Strengthens Executive Leadership Team with Amazon and Atlassian Veterans to Drive Global AI-Powered Growth
Six-time CMO Kelly Wenzel and global CRO Martin Musierowicz join to accelerate SmartBear's next phase of innovation and worldwide growth SOMERVILLE, Mass., June 03, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SmartBear, a leading provider of software quality and visibility solutions, has appointed Kelly Wenzel as Chief Marketing Officer and Martin Musierowicz as Chief Revenue Officer. Kelly brings a track record of driving growth at Andela and Amazon Alexa, whose global developer communities reach nearly half a million technologists worldwide. Martin spent seven years at Atlassian, one of SmartBear's key partners, where he scaled the company's worldwide channel sales from $25 million to over $1.3 billion. Together, their leadership will accelerate SmartBear's AI-powered transformation to help developers deliver high quality software at unprecedented speed. "Kelly and Martin bring exactly the proven leadership we need to advance our mission," said Dan Faulkner, CEO of SmartBear. "Their shared commitment to customer-obsessed growth and scalable innovation will strengthen our ability to deliver exceptional value to our customers and partners around the world as we enter this next phase of AI-driven development, where software quality has never been more essential." Martin brings more than two decades of experience in global sales and go-to-market leadership. He played a pivotal role in building Atlassian's partner ecosystem, transitioning to a SaaS subscription model and supporting Atlassian's IPO and continued growth as a public company. As CRO at Keyfactor, Martin scaled revenue from $32M to $130M ARR by operationalizing the sales and channel GTM model. Early in his career, he held sales leadership roles at IBM and Alfresco. "SmartBear's commitment to visibility, automation, and ethical AI resonates with my passion for customer-obsessed growth," said Martin Musierowicz, CRO of SmartBear. "Together with Kelly, we will build a unified growth engine that delivers value at every stage of the software lifecycle." With more than 30 years of experience, in addition to Andela, Kelly has led marketing for high-growth startups like Contently, Basis, Tideway Systems, and DataSynapse, as well as scaled global enterprises like Amazon Alexa and Amazon Pay. A career B2B tech leader, she brings deep expertise in complex B2B2C and marketplace models. Known for building go-to-market strategies that drive revenue and brand differentiation, Kelly is a recognized change agent who creates scalable teams, processes, and infrastructure. "SmartBear has an unprecedented opportunity to define how development teams build software in the AI era," said Kelly Wenzel, CMO of SmartBear. "I'm here to accelerate that transformation and create experiences that drive growth, category leadership, and advocacy." SmartBear is hiring in sales and marketing. For open positions, visit: About SmartBear SmartBear is pioneering innovation in software quality, embracing AI's transformative potential. The company's powerful solution hubs, including SmartBear API Hub, SmartBear Insight Hub, and SmartBear Test Hub, featuring HaloAI, give software development teams around the world visibility and automation that provide end-to-end quality. SmartBear is trusted by over 16 million developers, testers, and software engineers at 32,000+ organizations – including innovators like Adobe, JetBlue, FedEx, and Microsoft. With an active peer-to-peer community, SmartBear meets customers where they are to help make our technology-driven world a better place. The company is committed to ethical corporate practices, including responsible AI that integrates accountability and transparency across its technology stack, and to social responsibility, promoting good in all the communities it serves. Learn more at or follow on LinkedIn, X, or Facebook. All trademarks recognized. View source version on Contacts Tracy WemettBroadPR+1-617-868-5031tracy@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Asana (ASAN) Q1 Earnings: What To Expect
Work management software maker Asana (NYSE: ASAN) will be reporting earnings tomorrow afternoon. Here's what investors should know. Asana met analysts' revenue expectations last quarter, reporting revenues of $188.3 million, up 10% year on year. It was a strong quarter for the company, with EPS guidance for next quarter exceeding analysts' expectations and a solid beat of analysts' EBITDA estimates. Is Asana a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it's free. This quarter, analysts are expecting Asana's revenue to grow 7.6% year on year to $185.5 million, slowing from the 13.1% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.02 per share. Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Asana has a history of exceeding Wall Street's expectations, beating revenue estimates every single time over the past two years by 1.7% on average. Looking at Asana's peers in the productivity software segment, some have already reported their Q1 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 30.1%, beating analysts' expectations by 2.3%, and Atlassian reported revenues up 14.1%, in line with consensus estimates. traded up 4.5% following the results while Atlassian was down 8.9%. Read our full analysis of results here and Atlassian's results here. There has been positive sentiment among investors in the productivity software segment, with share prices up 7.6% on average over the last month. Asana is up 11.6% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $15.38 (compared to the current share price of $17.91). When a company has more cash than it knows what to do with, buying back its own shares can make a lot of sense–as long as the price is right. Luckily, we've found one, a low-priced stock that is gushing free cash flow AND buying back shares. Click here to claim your Special Free Report on a fallen angel growth story that is already recovering from a setback. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Morgan Stanley Says These 2 Stocks Are Top Picks for 2025
Recent U.S. economic data suggests that inflation is gradually easing toward the Federal Reserve's 2% target, with the headline CPI at 2.3% and core inflation at 2.8%. Meanwhile, the labor market remains resilient, adding 177,000 jobs in April and holding the unemployment rate steady at 4.2%. Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter However, despite these positive indicators, the Fed remains cautious. Officials have noted that while recent trends are promising, risks still linger — particularly the possibility that inflation could stall above target or that labor market conditions could weaken in the months ahead, especially under the weight of potential trade disruptions. As such, recession concerns haven't been fully laid to rest. Morgan Stanley's Global Strategy team, however, has taken a deep look into the current state of the world's economy, and they have come down on the side of the bulls. In their view, the global economy remains sound, at least for the near-term. 'Despite unprecedented policy uncertainty, the global economy is still in expansion mode, albeit with slowing growth. Off-ramps for de-escalation of trade tensions exist and we expect that tariffs will not end at the extreme levels in the aftermath of Liberation Day. Substantial monetary easing is ahead along with the benefits of deregulation… TINA – 'there is no alternative' – remains a theme for now. USD assets are – if not simply the best, nor better than all the rest – THE market which will attract bulk of flows,' the strategists wrote. The stock analysts at Morgan Stanley are running with this, and pointing out the 'Top Pick' stocks for the rest of 2025. According to the TipRanks data, both are also rated as Buys by the analyst consensus. Let's dig in and see what sets these picks apart in today's ever-shifting market landscape. Atlassian Corporation (TEAM) The first Morgan Stanley pick we'll look at is Atlassian, the international software company that has developed a set of collaboration tools designed for the online office. Atlassian's software packages enable smooth and efficient market, project, and product management, purpose-built to enhance collaboration and creativity in the workplace. The company was founded in 2002, and today boasts more than 300,000 customers. Atlassian's first product was Jira, its flagship project management tool. The company expanded based on Jira's success, and launched the collaboration platform Confluence in 2004. Today, Atlassian's product line-up includes 19 software programs, focusing on everything from office teamwork and collaboration to coding and online security. The company's software products are designed as cloud-native, and Atlassian arranges cloud hosting through AWS. TEAM shares took a hit early this month, when Atlassian released its fiscal 3Q25 results (March quarter). The company beat the forecast for both revenue and earnings – but its 4Q revenue guidance fell just short of the consensus estimate. Atlassian published top-line guidance for its fourth quarter in the range between $1.35 billion and $1.36 billion; the midpoint of $1.355 billion came below the analysts' expectation of $1.36 billion. The quarterly results themselves were considered sound. The 3Q top-line of $1.36 billion was up 14% year-over-year and $10 million better than the estimates; the bottom-line, a non-GAAP EPS of 97 cents was up 8 cents from 3Q24 and beat the forecast by 4 cents. Atlassian's free cash flow in Q3 was also strong, and grew 15% year-over-year to reach $638 million. For Morgan Stanley's Keith Weiss, an analyst ranked in the top 2% of Street stock experts, Atlassian continues to present a bullish case, despite niggling investor concerns. 'While the F3Q print left many investors questioning Atlassian's ability to execute against its +20% revenue CAGR target, we view the underlying trends as stable/healthy and agree with management's confidence in the durability of 20%+ growth. We view the results as indicative of this management team's commitment to long-term durability of growth, which at times comes the expense of near-term growth maximization. Given the rapid pace of innovation expanding the portfolio, strong value proposition enabling multiple growth levers, and the potential for further margin expansion, Atlassian screens as one of the Best Athletes in software, a positioning not well reflected in current valuation,' the 5-star analyst opined. 'At 28x CY26 FCF (1.1x growth-adj), current valuation presents attractive entry point for LT investors. Reiterate as Top Pick,' the analyst summed up. To this end, Weiss's Overweight (i.e., Buy) rating on TEAM comes with a $320 price target that implies a one-year upside potential of 50%. (To watch Weiss's track record, click here) Overall, TEAM gets a Strong Buy consensus rating from the Street, based on 21 recent analyst reviews that include 16 Buy recommendations and 5 Holds. The shares are priced at $213.03 and their $267.70 average target price points toward a gain of 25.5% in the next 12 months. (See TEAM stock forecast) Seagate Technology (STX) The next stock we'll look at is a technology company that provides memory hardware: Seagate Technology, which has been around since the late '70s and today is a leader in the hard disk market. The company provides both internal and external hard drive technology, and is well-known as a provider of solid-state disks (SSDs). Seagate's product lines include personal storage; cloud, edge, and data center memory; network attached storage; high-end gaming hard drives and SSDs; and hard drives for video and analytics. All computing sectors require memory, making Seagate's specialty an essential product. The company's products have found applications everywhere, from data migration to AI/ML training to analytics to high performance computing, in areas including public and private clouds, multicloud environments, and edge computing. Seagate's leading product, its Mozaic 3+ technology platform, powers the company's Exos hard drive family, which offers as much as 36TB of capacity. Seagate's success can be measured in dollar terms — the company boasts a market cap of nearly $25 billion, and in its fiscal year 2024, which ended on June 27, 2024, the company generated $6.55 billion in revenues. In the company's last quarterly release, which covered fiscal 3Q25 (ended on March 28), Seagate reported a top line of $2.16 billion. This represented an impressive 30% year-over-year gain, and beat the forecast by $30 million. At the bottom line, Seagate reported a non-GAAP EPS of $1.90, 16 cents per share ahead of the estimates. During the quarter, Seagate realized $216 million in free cash flow and returned $152 million to shareholders through its regular dividend payment. The next dividend, of 72 cents per common share, is scheduled for payment on July 8; the company's dividend annualizes to $2.88 per share and gives a forward yield of 2.55%. Erik Woodring, in his coverage of Seagate for Morgan Stanley, notes that the company is beating expectations on revenue growth and that today's tech environment, with its emphasis on demand for high-capacity computing and storage, is likely to remain supportive for the company. 'Mgmt's long-term financial model surpassed our expectations, guiding to stronger revenue growth, higher operating margins, and earlier share buybacks than we had anticipated… The inflection in compute will drive exponential growth in storage demand, and we see STX as a still underappreciated play on this theme at just 7.5x our peak EPS. Tech leadership, premium margins, robust FCF generation, and strong cap returns support EPS upside and multiple re-rating from here… STX is the Top Pick in our coverage,' Woodring noted. Being a 'Top Pick,' Seagate gets an Overweight (i.e., Buy) rating from Woodring, whose $140 price target on the stock implies it will gain 19% on the one-year horizon. (To watch Woodring's track record, click here) Seagate's Moderate Buy consensus rating is derived from 15 analyst reviews that split 10 to 5 in favor of Buy over Hold. The stock is selling for $117.34 and has an average price target of $121.79, suggesting a modest 4% upside in the next 12 months. (See STX stock forecast) To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks' Best Stocks to Buy, a tool that unites all of TipRanks' equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment. Disclaimer & DisclosureReport an Issue Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mark Cuban Would Start This Side Gig If He Were a Teenager
It's never too early to start planning for your financial future, and no one understands this better than billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban. He started making money at the age of 12, when he began selling trash bags. He differentiated himself by offering delivery. Time have changed, and delivery of grocery and household items is commonplace, so Cuban's idea likely wouldn't be as successful today. But he knows what he would do as a side gig today, and you can do it too. Read Next: Find Out: In an interview with CNBC Make It, Cuban said he would start an artificial intelligence (AI) side hustle in three steps. Here's what you need to know about the side gig Cuban would start if he were a teenager today. Also see four side gigs no one talks about that pay surprisingly well. The first step Cuban would take would be to learn how to write prompts for ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini. This sounds easy, but there's definitely an art to it. According to the tech company Atlassian, there are four things to keep in mind. The first is persona. Writing naturally is important, but it's even more effective to write in the first person. Instead of asking, 'What is the best way to get into college?' you could say, 'I'm a high school junior. Give me five things to do to increase my chances of getting into college.' Next, there's the task. Being specific about what you want the AI to do is an important part of writing an effective prompt. If you're writing an email or a blog post, say so. If you're looking for tips on something (as in the college example above), ask for tips specifically. Be clear and concise. You can always ask for more detail later. Then, there's context. Include your reason for asking and, if applicable, your audience in your prompt. This will help AI tailor the response to be useful to you. Including the intended audience of the piece will provide a response that's appropriate for that audience. And finally, there's format. Stating the format can mean including the number of words and whether you want to response to be friendly, academic, promotional or something else. If you want something other than straight text, you can ask for a bulleted list, a table or even an image. Explore More: Just knowing how to write effective AI prompts probably won't make you much money. But if you write those prompts for businesses or teach businesses and friends how they can write their own prompts, now you're looking at a revenue stream. In the interview, Cuban explained he'd teach his friends how to write prompts and then approach businesses. 'I would go to businesses, particularly small- to medium-sized businesses that don't understand AI yet. Doesn't matter if I'm 16, I'd be teaching them as well,' he said. A college degree isn't required to become an expert in writing AI prompts. What you will need, however, is lots of practice. Start by writing your own prompts, and test them on different models. You'll soon learn what models respond well to certain types of prompts, and you'll learn how these large language models operate in general. There are online courses to help you, and you can get certifications to show that you've been trained. There are courses on Coursera, and you can also look into courses from colleges like Northeastern University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Teenagers have a couple of advantages here if they want to be financially successful. They have the ability to start early. Beginning a business in your teens gives you plenty of time to figure things out and pivot to something new if your first idea doesn't work out. They also are typically savvier with new technology, like AI. Using that knowledge and familiarity to educate those who don't understand it can be a great side gig for a teenager. More From GOBankingRates 9 Downsizing Tips for the Middle Class To Save on Monthly Expenses This article originally appeared on Mark Cuban Would Start This Side Gig If He Were a Teenager Sign in to access your portfolio
News.com.au
25-05-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Hot Money Monday: ASX fintechs could ride tailwind as Airwallex soars to $6bn valuation
Airwallex lifts off with $300m raise, hits $6.2 billion valuation Idea generated in Melbourne café turns into $130bn payments powerhouse Here are ASX players in the same space Australia's startup scene wasn't always the fast-moving, unicorn-spawning machine it is today. Not long ago, the idea of launching a billion-dollar tech company from the land Down Under seemed far-fetched. Most investors were cautious, and startups were often little more than side hustles trying to solve local problems. But that's all changed, big time. Thanks to a cocktail of factors including tech-savvy consumers, strong university talent, government support, and sheer grit, Australia has become a fertile breeding ground for tech giants. Today, names like Atlassian, Canva, and SafetyCulture are global brands, and there's a growing herd of Aussie unicorns making their names beyond our shores. Among them, one name stands out in fintech: Airwallex. The Melbourne baby that took on the world Born in a Melbourne café in 2015, Airwallex was the brainchild of a group of mates who were fed up with the clunky and expensive process of moving money across borders. They rolled up their sleeves and built a sleek, B2B cross-border payments platform that would eventually challenge the status quo of global banking. Fast forward to 2025, and that scrappy startup has grown into a fintech juggernaut. Headquartered in Singapore with major offices in San Francisco and London, Airwallex now helps over 150,000 businesses around the globe handle international transactions, issue cards and manage spend. Its clients include big names like Qantas, Shein and Xero; and the company has grown its revenue by more than 90% year-over-year. In 2024 alone, it moved over US$130 billion in payments. Airwallex's latest mega raise Last week, Airwallex raised US$300 million in a fresh Series F round, taking its valuation up to US$6.2 billion, a near 11% bump from 2022. At a time when the fintech sector has been struggling to shake off the chill of rising interest rates and investor fatigue, that's no small feat. In fact, 2025 has been tough going for startups globally. According to PitchBook, more than a quarter of all startup deals this year have been flat or down rounds. So, for Airwallex to pull off an up-round, and one of this scale, shows just how strong the fundamentals are. Big names chipped in, too: Square Peg, DST Global, Lone Pine Capital, Blackbird, Airtree, and Visa Ventures, along with some of Australia's leading pension funds. The total capital raised by Airwallex now exceeds US$1.2 billion, and the war chest will be used to expand infrastructure into Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. CEO Jack Zhang said: 'The global financial system wasn't built for today's borderless economy... We're building a new foundation for the global economy – fast, seamless and built for scale.' ASX fintech contenders in the B2B space Airwallex's latest funding success also puts a spotlight on ASX-listed fintechs playing in similar cross-border payments and digital finance spaces. While Airwallex has chosen to remain private for now, the ASX isn't short on fintech hopefuls trying to carve their own slice of the pie. Novatti (ASX:NOV) is probably a standout here, offering global digital payment solutions and pushing for a banking license. It's a bit like Airwallex's cousin, handling end-to-end processing for cross-border commerce. Then there's Tyro Payments (ASX:TYR), known for its EFTPOS and small business banking services. While it leans more local than global, it's still a big player in Aussie fintech. Change Financial (ASX:CCA) is quietly building a payments-as-a-service platform, issuing cards and handling transactions for other fintechs. Think of them as the plumbing underneath the financial apps we use. EML Payments (ASX:EML) offers prepaid cards and digital wallet services, making it another infrastructure-style player with international reach. Last but not least, Cuscal (ASX:CCL), while not flashy, is an unsung hero. It provides essential payments infrastructure to banks and credit unions across the country.
