The archive · Developer & Business Tools · Strategic decision · 2018
Asana raised $50M at a $1.5B valuation to own work management
Near-profitable Asana closed a $50M Series E at a $1.5B valuation in 2018, funding international growth and AI in the unclaimed work-management category.
Asana
What the business is
Asana sells a SaaS work-management platform that teams and individuals use to plan and track projects, competing with Airtable, Wrike, Trello and Basecamp; by November 2018 it had 50,000 paying organizations, millions of free users, and customers in 195 countries.
Starting capital：$213 million raised since Asana was founded in 2008, including a $75M Series D in January 2018 at a $900M post-money valuation and the $50M Series E at $1.5B.
How it started
Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein first built an internal tool at Facebook to help coworkers manage workloads, then founded Asana in 2008 to sell the same capability. By 2018 its customers included Uber, Tesco, Sony Music and London's National Gallery.
What happened
In January 2018 Asana raised a $75M Series D at a $900M post-money valuation; by September it announced 50,000 paying organizations, and in November it launched Asana for Business, a $19.99-per-user paid tier, plus Timelines and early AI features. On November 29, 2018 it closed a $50M Series E led by Generation Investment Management at a $1.5B valuation, with existing investors 8VC, Benchmark and Founders Fund joined by new investors Lead Edge Capital and World Innovation Lab.
How it ended up
The Series E closed and made Asana a unicorn at a $1.5B valuation, taking 2018 funding to $125M; the proceeds were earmarked for a Frankfurt data center, offices in Sydney and Tokyo, hiring, and continued AI and product work, with Asana still operating and expanding.
Background
Asana began inside Facebook, where Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein built an internal tool to help coworkers keep track of workloads. They founded Asana in 2008 to sell that capability, and by 2018 the platform was used by 50,000 paying organizations and millions of free users, with customers in 195 countries including Uber, Tesco, Sony Music and London's National Gallery.
Moskovitz framed collaboration as three markets — file collaboration, messaging and work management — and argued the third was massive and under-served. Asana's 2018 bet was that it could own that category: it raised a $75M Series D at a $900M valuation in January, then doubled down on November 29 with a $50M Series E led by Generation Investment Management at a $1.5B valuation.
The money funded expansion into markets where demand was already visible — half of new sales came from outside the US, with a Frankfurt data center and Sydney and Tokyo offices planned — plus machine-learning features and the Asana for Business enterprise tier. Moskovitz said the company was close to profitability and had kept most of its earlier funding, letting it choose investors and timing rather than raise out of need.
What has to be true
- Work management was a real gap: Slack and Teams had taken messaging and Dropbox and Box had taken files, but no platform yet owned planning and tracking across projects.
- The product had demonstrated demand before the round — 50,000 paying organizations, millions of free users, and reference customers like Uber, which managed some 600 city expansions through Asana.
- Near-profitability with a large cash balance gave Asana leverage: it could raise for expansion on its own terms and pick investors like Generation whose long-term vision matched its own.
- International growth was evidence, not a hope: half of new sales already came from outside the US, so the Frankfurt, Sydney and Tokyo expansion was funding demonstrated demand.
What can be applied
Fund the category everyone uses but nobody owns: messaging had Slack and files had Dropbox, but work management had no leader — Asana raised twice in 2018 to claim it.
Aftermath
As of November 29, 2018, Asana had customers in 195 countries and six languages, was close to profitability, and had just become a unicorn with the $50M Series E. The company planned to open an AWS-based data center in Frankfurt in the first half of 2019, add offices in Sydney and Tokyo, and keep building machine-learning features toward Moskovitz's stated vision of marrying computer and human intelligence to run entire companies. It continued to face Airtable, Wrike, Trello and Basecamp in the work-management space.
Sources
- Asana, a work management platform, nabs $50M growth round at a $1.5B valuation
- Asana raises $50M at a $1.5B valuation — Hacker News discussion
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