Facebook co-founder eyes direct listing for Asana

Asana, the business software company led by Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, is expected to choose a direct listing when it goes public next year, adding to the succession of companies using the alternative to initial public offerings.

The San Francisco-based group has hired Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan Chase to advise on its listing, two people briefed on the matter said. Asana could also execute a private share sale leading up to the listing, allowing it to raise money without an IPO, one of the people said.

An Asana spokesperson declined to comment on its plans. People briefed on the matter said it may still choose a traditional IPO.

A direct listing would be another test of the procedure recently used by workplace chat company Slack and the music streaming service Spotify. Unlike an IPO, a direct listing does not involve fundraising and requires only making existing shares available on Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange, cutting the costs of going public.

Accommodation-booking company Airbnb is also expected to choose a direct listing when it goes public next year, in what would likely be the largest to date, people briefed on the matter have said.

In October, more than 100 companies and dozens of venture capitalists turned out to a conference on direct listings hosted by Benchmark Capital investor Bill Gurley, one of their most vocal advocates.

Some detractors have argued the procedure may not work for companies with less brand recognition than Slack and Spotify, which attracted both retail and large institutional investors to their listings.

Asana was most recently valued at $1.5bn after raising $50m from investors in November last year. The company, whose workplace project management programme competes with the likes of Microsoft and monday.com, said earlier this year it had begun generating annualised revenues of $100m but is not yet profitable.

Mr Moskovitz, whose stake in Facebook made him a multi-billionaire, founded Asana in 2008 after creating a similar work management tool at the social network. Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein previously helped develop Facebook’s “like” button.

Named after a Hindi word referring to meditation poses, Asana says its customers include Airbnb, Nasa and Uber.

Some of Asana’s investors have publicly expressed support for direct listings. Mr Gurley told Fortune magazine in September that Mr Moskovitz was interested in the procedure.