Asana has taken a decision to go for an IPO via a direct listing, following Spotify Technology SA and Slack Technologies Inc. that were the first to raise capital this way.
Asana Inc., the developer of web and mobile app for organizing, tracking, and managing work, has confidentially submitted a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In the statement, Asana revealed their plan to enter the public markets via a direct listing. In other words, Asana files for IPO.
Asana stated:
“The public listing is expected to take place after the SEC completes its review process, subject to market and other conditions.”
When reached for further comments, Asana’s representatives declined to provide any information.
A traditional IPO and a direct listing are similar in both being ways to go public and sell shares on the open market. While an IPO is the traditional way companies have gone public in the past, direct listings are faster and cheaper. In a traditional IPO, investment banks serve to underwrite the issuing stock, which adds cost and time to go public. Besides, banks’ participation means security. In an IPO, the underwriters distribute shares among select brokerages who then impose restrictions on who is able to participate in the IPO. Therefore, it may be hard for investors to gain access to IPOs.
In contrast, direct public offering means stocks are listed on the market for everyone to access and trade. The availability of shares is dependent upon early investors, with the price depending upon volatile market demand. As a result, a direct public offering is riskier than an IPO.
Asana files for IPO via a direct listing, following Spotify Technology SA and Slack Technologies Inc. that were the first to raise capital this way.
About Asana
Asana is the work management platform teams use to stay focused on the goals, projects, and daily tasks that grow business. Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and ex-Google-and-Facebook engineer Justin Rosenstein established Asana in 2008. The company officially launched for free out of beta in November 2011 and commercially in April 2012.
Asana’s mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling the world’s teams to work together effortlessly. Asana has more than 1 million users and more than 50,000 paying customers.
In March 2017, Asana partnered with Microsoft teams. Later, in autumn 2017, Asana announced an integration with Gmail.
In November 2018, Asana raised $50 million in a Series E round on a $1.5 billion valuation. Coming into its direct listing, the company has raised a total of $213.2 million, including $75 million in January 2018.
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