Overview
Loom made it easy to record a screen and face together, then share the result as a link. Joe Thomas, Vinay Hiremath, and Shahed Khan started the company in 2015. Their first idea was a video feedback service; the recording tool became the product. Atlassian acquired Loom in November 2023 and continues to sell it as a standalone product.[1] [2]
The key decision was to let a video travel outside the tool that made it. A sender needed a recording, while each recipient could watch without attending a meeting. That design made the message itself a route to new users. The same distribution also made the company attractive to an incumbent whose software already organized team work.
Founding Story
The founders began with Opentest, a service for getting video feedback on websites. Khan had worked at Upfront Ventures and previously designed products at Weebly. The three friends pursued the feedback idea through the NFX accelerator, but the company was running short of money after about six months.[1]
Thomas later described pulling the recorder out of the original platform. The team launched the resulting Openvid tool in June 2016. Product Hunt reported 3,000 signups in its first 24 hours. That was evidence of interest in the recorder, although signups alone do not establish retention or revenue.[3]
The team renamed the product Loom. In a later founder account, Thomas wrote that Atlassian first appeared among its users five days after launch. Atlassian eventually bought a license for every employee, making it both an early customer and a future buyer.[4]
Timeline
- 2015: Thomas, Hiremath, and Khan began building together.[5]
- June 2016: Openvid launched as a standalone recorder on Product Hunt.[3]
- February 2019: Loom reported 1.1 million registered users and launched Mac and Windows apps alongside its paid Pro plan.[1]
- May 2021: Loom announced a $130 million Series C led by Andreessen Horowitz.[6]
- November 30, 2023: Atlassian acquired all outstanding Loom equity.[2]
What They Built
A user recorded a screen, camera, and voice, then shared a link. Loom uploaded video while the person recorded, so the link could be ready immediately after the session. That shortened the gap between explaining a problem and sending the explanation.[1]
The initial Chrome extension fit work already happening in a browser. The 2019 desktop apps extended recording beyond browser tabs. Loom also added features for editing, calls to action, and viewer analytics in its paid plan. Sales teams could send a personalized explanation; product teams could show a bug or walk through a design. Those uses shared a common task: explain something visible on a screen without arranging a live call.[1]
Today, the product includes transcripts, comments, recording libraries, and AI-assisted summaries and editing. Atlassian still sells a free Starter plan and paid plans. The current product is therefore a direct competitor for anyone rebuilding the core recorder.[7]
Market Position
Target Customers
Loom entered through individual workers who needed to show a colleague or customer something on a screen. Its use cases crossed product, engineering, sales, and support teams. That gave a single recording format many possible points of entry inside an organization.[1]
Market Size
The record supports a large user base, but it does not establish the size of a distinct market for asynchronous video. The company’s 2021 announcement reported 14 million users across 200,000 companies. These were company-reported usage figures, not a count of paying customers.[6]
Competition
Loom competed with written messages and live meetings as well as video tools. TechCrunch identified Vidyard’s GoVideo and Wistia’s Soapbox as competitors in 2019. The distinction was the workflow: a short message created and delivered quickly, rather than a scheduled conversation or a polished production.[1]
The advantage was not permanent ownership of screen recording. A larger collaboration platform could add recording, store the video beside other work, and distribute it to an existing customer base. Joining Atlassian changed that relationship: Loom gained an owner with a large distribution network, while continuing to compete as its own product.
Business Model
Loom used a free product to reach users and charged for additional features. Its 2019 Pro plan cost $10 per user per month and added features including editing and viewer analytics. The company did not disclose a conversion rate or unit economics in that report, so the size of the paying business at that point remains unknown.[1]
Atlassian’s current pricing page lists a free tier with 25 recordings and five-minute video limits, plus Business and Business + AI plans. Prices and packaging may change; the important decision for a buyer is whether repeated recording, editing, and administration justify a paid seat.[7]
Traction
By February 2019, Loom reported 1.1 million users across 18,000 companies. In 2021, a16z said users had recorded more than 100 million videos. These are different measures: registered users and cumulative recordings do not reveal how many people paid or continued using the product.[1] [8]
Atlassian later reported that customers recorded over 88 million videos in 2024. This confirms continuing product activity under the acquirer, although the reported figure does not show retention by customer or profitability.[9]
Outcome and evolution
A customer became the acquirer
Atlassian’s relationship with Loom began as product use, not as an acquisition process. Thomas said the company became an early organization-wide customer. In October 2023, he described a shared focus on helping distributed teams work together and said Loom would continue its standalone product alongside new integrations.[4]
The strategic fit is visible in the products: a screen recording can explain the work tracked in a ticket or document. That is an interpretation of the fit, not proof of either party’s private negotiation. Atlassian’s annual report says it acquired 100% of Loom on November 30, 2023, for approximately $885.6 million in purchase consideration. The often-cited announced transaction value and the accounting consideration are different measures and should not be treated as identical.[2]
Sharing solved distribution and created a dependency
Loom’s link carried both the work and an invitation to experience the product. A recipient saw a useful explanation before deciding whether to record one. This mechanism could spread across teams without a salesperson initiating every interaction. It also depended on a reliable, low-friction viewing experience: every broken link or access barrier could interrupt both communication and discovery.
A competing explanation is that remote-work demand alone drove adoption. The 2021 investor account reported rapid growth, and the timing coincided with widespread remote work. Yet the product had already reported more than a million registered users in 2019. The evidence supports both an established workflow and a later tailwind; it does not isolate their separate effects.[1] [8]
Key Lessons
- Extract the behavior people already use. Openvid emerged from the recorder inside Opentest. Its launch tested that behavior without requiring the original feedback marketplace to succeed.
- Make delivery part of the product. Uploading during recording and sharing a link reduced the work after a user finished speaking. Recipients could understand the value before signing up.
- Track adoption and revenue separately. Loom’s public usage figures show reach, but do not establish paid conversion. A founder needs both measures to judge whether a free collaboration habit can support a business.
- An acquirer can also be a competitor to a rebuild. Atlassian kept selling Loom after its acquisition. A new entrant needs a specific workflow or customer need that the surviving product does not already serve.
Sources
- TechCrunch: Loom’s product and Series A
- Atlassian 2024 annual report
- Product Hunt: Loom’s launch
- Loom: Joining Atlassian
- Stanford: Vinay Hiremath talk transcript
- Loom: Series C announcement
- Atlassian: Loom pricing
- Andreessen Horowitz: Investing in Loom
- Atlassian shareholder letter, fiscal Q2 2025