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Accel offered a high-end valuation term sheet to win the Atlassian deal

Rich Wong · 20VC: Accel GP, Rich Wong on When Is The Right Time To Scale A Startup, Optimising Initial vs Follow-On Investment Decision-Making & The Globalisation of VC In Recent Years · Dec 4, 2017 · at 9:06

Rich Wong is a General Partner at Accel. He cites Accel's investment in Atlassian as an example of being willing to pay a high valuation for a company with unbounded upside potential.

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“So, a company like Atlassian, I think we were not on the low end of how we put in our term sheet in terms of the valuation that we ascribed to Atlassian at the time.”

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