Facebook alumni line up $28 million for workplace app Asana

By Sarah McBride

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Asana, a Silicon Valley start-up, has lined up $28 million in a financing round led by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel and his Founders Fund, the company said.

The funding round values the workplace-collaboration company at $280 million, a person familiar with the matter said.

"This investment allows us to attract the best and brightest designers and engineers," said Asana co-founder Justin Rosenstein, who said that in turn would help the company build on its goal of making interaction among its client-companies' employees easier.

Asana launched the free version last year of its company management software that makes it easier to collaborate on projects. It introduced a paid, premium service earlier this year. It declined to give revenue figures, but said "hundreds" of customers had upgraded to the premium version.

Although Rosenstein and co-founder Dustin Moskovitz are alumni of social-network Facebook- Moskovitz co-founded the service with his Harvard roommate Mark Zuckerberg - they were quick to distance Asana from social networking.

Instead, they say, they view the company as an alternative to email, in-person meetings, physical whiteboards, and spreadsheets.

"That's what we see as our competition," said Rosenstein. "Replacing those technologies."

With its latest funding round, Asana has now raised a total of $38 million from investors including Benchmark Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.