Work Management Software Maker Asana Files For Direct Listing On NYSE

Workplace management firm Asana Inc. filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission Monday to go public through a direct listing at the New York Stock Exchange.

What Happened:The startup, founded by Facebook Inc FB co-founder Dustin Moscovitz, more than doubled its net loss to $118.6 million in the financial year ending Jan. 31, 2020, compared with a net loss of $50.9 million in the previous year, according to its S-1 filing. 

Asana says its revenue rose 85.7% in FY20 over the previous year at $142.6 million. 

The company claims its work management platform has over 75,000 paying customers, and as of Jan. 31, had over 1.2 million paying users. 

For FY20, the workplace startup said it generated 41% of its revenues from customers outside of the United States.

“We left Facebook and created Asana to address our own pain: We love working on big ideas, but we loathe the annoying busywork required by their execution,” Moskovitz and fellow co-founder Justin Rosenstein.

Why It Matters: Asana was valued by private investors at $1.5 billion in 2018 and has raised $214 million to date, according to PitchBook data, as reported by Bloomberg.

The company filed a draft S-1 form in February with the SEC. The company will not create any new shares for sale but instead sell existing stock held by its investors, founders, and others, in a direct listing.

Other companies that have used a similar methodology to go public include music streaming platform Spotify Technologies S.A. SPOT and a workplace platform Slack Technologies Inc WORK.

Photo courtesy: Asana