Asana acquires Stack AI for $75 million to bolster AI workplace strategy

Asana has acquired no-code agent-builder Stack AI for $75 million, a move designed to strengthen its position as an AI-native workplace platform. The acquisition, announced on Thursday afternoon to coincide with Asana’s earnings report and investor call, aims to integrate Stack AI’s workflow automation capabilities directly into Asana’s existing corporate systems.

Stack AI designs agents to operate within established business environments, pulling data from platforms such as Salesforce, Slack, and Gsuite. The company, which was part of Y Combinator’s Winter ’23 cohort, had raised just under $20 million prior to the deal, including a recent $16 million Series A round. Investors in that round included Gradient, Epaklon Capital, Lobby VC, LifeX Ventures, and Vercel CEO Guillermo Rauch.

Asana’s chief executive, Dan Rogers, stated that the acquisition accelerates the company’s roadmap for "human-agent work." Rogers noted that the integration allows Asana to "agentify" complex business processes end-to-end, building on momentum already seen with existing products such as AI Studio and AI Teammates. Stack AI founders Tony Rosinol and Bernard Aceituno will join Asana as part of the transaction.

The strategic pivot comes as Asana seeks to differentiate itself from broader AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as automation competitors such as Zapier. The company argues that its deep integration into corporate workflows provides a distinct advantage, allowing it to distil context and training data that would otherwise be unavailable to external providers.

Despite steady revenue growth, Asana has faced headwinds in public markets, losing more than half its market capitalisation since the introduction of ChatGPT. The decline was exacerbated by the departure of founder Dustin Moskovitz as chief executive last March. The new leadership remains confident that its focus on human-agent products will enable a rebound in market performance.