Workday has acquired VNDLY, an external workforce management startup, for approximately $510 million, primarily made up of cash, subject to change.
Workday is one of the leading vendors in the market for companies to manage their finance, planning, and human resources tasks. VNDLY is a cloud-based platform with pre-built API connections that helps companies develop and maintain technology ecosystems while driving digital transformations. Contingent workforce management, statement of work management, independent contractor compliance, and comprehensive talent acquisition are the four modules that make up the platform.
VNDLY's addition will make Workday's stack more valuable as clients will have a single platform to manage both their internal and external personnel.
A Holistic Workforce Strategy
Talking about the acquisition, Workday's co-CEO Aneel Bhusri said, "Workday and VNDLY together will deliver a comprehensive total workforce optimization solution that brings an integrated approach to managing all types of workers. We'll help customers bridge the gap between internal and external workforce management while enabling a holistic workforce strategy that delivers full visibility into entire workforce and managing and planning for labor needs, while also helping to control compliance and security risks."
Workday's Chief Strategy Officer Pete Schlampp said, "The buying center has traditionally been in the procurement space but has more recently been trending towards the HR space. That was a great fit for us because we sell to both of those buyers. [VNDLY] looked like a nice piece of the puzzle between our Human Capital Management, our financial management, and our spend management solutions."
Whereas, according to Courier research, VNDLY is one of Greater Cincinnati's best-funded companies. Vndly raised roughly $57.4 million in total after adding $8.5 million to its $35 million Series B headed by New York's Insight Partners in May 2020.
Pete Blackshaw, CEO of startup catalyst group Cintrifuse, one of VNDLY's first investors, described it as the region's best startup exit. VNDLY co-founder and CEO Shashank Saxena stated that joining Workday will allow the company to give greater value to its consumers.
The announcement comes at a time when Workday has posted strong Q3 results. The company recorded total revenues of $1.33 billion, up 20.0 percent year over year.
Workday's co-CEO Chano Fernandez said, "Strength in Q3 was once again broad-based with solid growth in landing new core HR and FINS customers. We once again saw a very strong renewal performance and our customer base team drove strength cross-selling a number of solutions aimed at the CHRO and CFO, including Core FINS, Learning, People Analytics, Planning and Spend Management."
The Way Forward
Both these companies already had a working relationship. VNDLY lists Workday as an integration partner on its website. The takeover is projected to close in the first quarter of 2022.
Though the financials look good for Workday, recently reported bumps in their projects with Amazon and the state of Maine, along with Q4 growth projections to be the same as last quarter, their stock has plunged nearly 9% at the end of last week.
However, with VNDLY's acquisition, Workday has shown intent that it wants to stay competitive in this rapidly changing market, where remote, contractual, and hybrid work seems to be on the rise.
