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Comment by m52go | Hacker News Reader

So. This company raised $75 million less than a year ago. It just raised another $50 million for "growth" now, 10 years after it was founded...for a grand total of $213 million in venture capital.

What the heck will these guys do now with $125 million that they couldn't do in the past 10 years with $88 million?

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If you can get capital for cheap (i.e. minimal dilution), then having a bit of cushion for any macroeconomic rollercoasters ain't such a bad idea. They can also use it for M&A, early employee liquidity, and a whole host of other useful functions.

Oh they'll use it...I have no doubt about that. If I led this company, I'd be foolish to turn it down (without knowing anything else). I'm less sure what's going through heads of their investors.

The investors probably just want a slice of Asana, and feel like $1.5b is a good price

Why are you making all these bold statements without mention or discussion of any business metrics?

Without knowing things like yearly revenue growth, LTV of customers, churn, operational costs, etc. how could you make any claims about if the valuation or capital raised is or isn't justified?

What does early employee liquidity mean, and how is it beneficial to the investors?

I believe it is referring to things like stock option buybacks, so that early employees can reap some of the rewards from their equity compensation.

It may not directly help investors, who are buying into the company as a whole. It may just be an important tool to holding quality talent, to help Asana be as valuable as it can be in the long run.

However, from a monetary perspective, the investors are willing to buy in today at $1.5B. Option buybacks are usually at less than full valuation. Employees are trading value for a sure payout today. Therefore, using the money to buy back those options from early employees reduces outstanding shares and options and improves the value of remaining investors' ownership.

Exactly. In theory, if the investors can get equity they want at a discount, and employees can get long-awaited cash they want — even not at "full price", because who knows what or when that might be - then everybody wins.

thanks both!

Adding fuel to the growth spurt. We're opening up a data center in frankfurt and opening up / growing more offices like NYC

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