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>Does the CEO of Asana have pension funds, mutual funds, PE, HFs, etc in their contacts list? He might actually, what with his time at Facebook. But the point
by ummonk 7y ago
>Does the CEO of Asana have pension funds, mutual funds, PE, HFs, etc in their contacts list?
He might actually, what with his time at Facebook.
But the point of a direct listing is that you aren't negotiating a price - you put the company on the stock market, and let the markets do the negotiating for you.
- rchaud 7y agoIf employees are partially compensated in options, it makes sense to negotiate a price that's at or above the strike price so that some of their options can be cashed out at the time of going public. If Asana is profitable and their valuations check out, that would be a scenario where maybe the banks aren't needed. But if they're not, leaving it up the market to decide can be dangerous.
- ummonk 7y agoThere are plenty of comparables in the public markets of similar companies (SaaS companies with high growth rates at the expense of profitability), including Smartsheet in particular being in practically the same market. It's pretty easy to estimate the range of valuations at which Asana would trade, and ensure that is well above the employee strike price.