Asana, which makes an important tool for the shift to remote work, got a $40 million loan in April for construction of a new San Francisco headquarters

• Asana, the productivity startup that filed to go public on Monday, is building a new corporate headquarters in San Francisco, and entered into a $40 million loan agreement from Silicon Valley Bank for its construction.
• The new HQ is a 12-story, 265,890 square foot building near Second Street in San Francisco, and Asana signed the lease in February 2019. 
• The company has started construction on the building and expects to start occupying it and paying rent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, which is February 2021.
• Like most other tech companies, Asana has temporarily closed its offices and asked employees to work remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a cloud software company focused on productivity, it's tools are uniquely positioned to help enable remote work.
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The coronavirus outbreak has driven Silicon Valley employees out of their offices and into the new world of remote work, as tech companies figure out the future of the workplace. 

But Asana, the maker of project collaboration software that remote workers are increasingly turning to, is betting that the office isn't going away. The company disclosed on Monday that it got a $40 million loan in April for construction of its San Francisco headquarters.

Asana, which filed paperwork to go public on Monday, disclosed the loan from Silicon Valley Bank in its S-1 filing. 

The lease agreement for the new HQ was signed in February 2019 and located at 633 Folsom St, a 12-story, 265,890 square foot building near Second Street in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, as first reported by the SF Chronicle.

In its S-1 paperwork for its planned direct listing, Asana said the lease started in May, and the company expects to start occupying it and paying rent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2022, which is February 2021. Asana says it has started construction on the space. The lease ends in October 2033. 

Asana, like most other tech companies has temporarily closed its offices and asked employees to work remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic. As a cloud software company focused on productivity, its tools are uniquely positioned to help enable remote work, which the company touts in its paperwork to go public. 

However, unlike other software companies that enable remote work, like Slack and Box, Asana hasn't announced formal plans to give employees more remote work options even after the pandemic ends. That might have something to do with its pre-existing plans for a new HQ.

The $40 million loan from Silicon Valley Bank is meant to to be used for the construction of the new HQ, according to Asana's S-1.  Asana says it expects to incur a minimum of $475 million in costs associated with the lease, plus another $3.9 million because in April 2020, it added more space and amended the lease. 

Asana had 701 employees as of January 31, 2020, growing its headcount 65% in a single year. It expects to continue hiring more employees, and it also has outposts around the world in cities like London, Munich, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, and Vancouver. The new HQ can house up to 1,500 employees, according to the SF Chronicle. 

"We intend to procure additional space in the future as we continue to add employees and expand geographically," Asana wrote in its S-1. "We believe our facilities are adequate and suitable for our current needs and that, should it be needed, suitable additional or alternative space will be available to accommodate our operations."

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