Workday

Workday, Inc., is an American on‑demand (cloud-based) financial management and human capital management software vendor. Workday was founded by David Duffield, founder and former CEO of ERP company PeopleSoft, and former PeopleSoft chief strategist Aneel Bhusri following Oracle's hostile takeover of PeopleSoft in 2005.

In October 2012, it launched a successful initial public offering that valued the company at $9.5 billion. Competitors include SAP Successfactors and Oracle.

In 2020, Fortune magazine ranked Workday Inc. at number five on their Fortune List of the Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2020 based on an employee survey of satisfaction. San Francisco Business Times ranked Workday at number two on their Best Places to Work in the Bay in the largest companies category.

History

Workday was founded in March 2005 and launched in November 2006. Initially, it was funded by Duffield and venture capital firm Greylock Partners. In December 2008, Workday moved its headquarters from Walnut Creek, California to Pleasanton, California, where PeopleSoft founder Duffield's prior company, was located.

On February 6, 2008, Workday announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to purchase Cape Clear Software. In May 2008, Workday signed a large contract with Flextronics to provide human capital management software services. Other large, multinational companies that have publicly disclosed contracts or deployments of Workday include Aviva, Chiquita Brands, CAE Inc., Fairchild Semiconductor, Rentokil Initial, Thomson Reuters, and Time Warner.

On April 29, 2009, Workday announced that it secured $75 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates. Existing investors Greylock Partners and Workday CEO and co‑founder Dave Duffield also participated in the round. On October 24, 2011, Workday announced $85 million in new funding, bringing total capital raised to $250 million. Investors in the latest round included T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Janus, and Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment entity of Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos. As of spring 2012, Workday had 310 customers, ranging from mid-sized businesses to Fortune 500 companies.

In October 2012, Workday launched its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange with ticker symbol WDAY. Its shares were priced at $28 and ended trading Friday, October 12, at $48.69, "propelled the start-up to a market capitalization of nearly $9.5 billion including unexercised stock options." It sold 22.75 million Class A shares, raising $637 million. The IPO raised more cash than any launch in the U.S. technology sector since Facebook's $16 billion IPO in May 2012. Its shares surged 74% in their IPO, underscoring investor interest in cloud computing.

In 2018 Workday acquired Filip Doušek's company Stories.bi.

The Co-CEO of Workday is Aneel Bhusri, who is a partner with Greylock Partners and handled senior leadership positions earlier in his career at PeopleSoft. In 2020, Chano Fernandez was promoted to Co-CEO. Dave Duffield serves as the Chairman of the Board.