Asana files to go public via direct listing

Asana, the San Francisco-based company known for its project- and task-management software, has filed to go public via a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange.

Why it matters: Despite Silicon Valley's spike in interest in the direct listing as an alternative to the traditional IPO, Asana will be only the third company to take that route after Spotify in 2018 and Slack last year.

Catch up quick: In a traditional IPO, companies raise money by selling shares to institutional customers before the stock starts trading, but existing shareholders are typically forbidden from selling until after a "lockup" period. In a direct listing, the company doesn't raise new capital, but existing shareholders are freer to start trading immediately.

By the numbers:

• For the year ending Jan. 31, 2020, Asana had a loss of $118.6 million on $142.6 million in revenue. For the year ending Jan. 31, 2019, it lost $50.9 million on $76.8 million in revenue.
• The company says it has more than 3.2 million free account users and 75,000 paying customers with a total of 1.2 million paying users across 190 countries.
• Asana's biggest shareholders are co-founder and CEO Dustin Moskovitz, Benchmark Capital, Generation Management, and Founders Fund.
• According to its most recent secondary trades, Asana's stock traded at a volume-weighted average price of $15.82 in fiscal 2020, $15.98 in Q1 2021, and $17.26 in Q2 2021.