2005–2015
Workday was founded in March 2005 and launched in November 2006.[5][6] Initially, it was funded by David Duffield and the 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.[7][8]
On February 6, 2008, Workday announced that it had reached a definitive agreement to purchase Cape Clear Software.[9] In May 2008, Workday signed a large contract with Flextronics to provide human capital management software services.[10] Companies that have publicly disclosed contracts or deployments of Workday include Aviva,[11] Chiquita Brands, and other firms.[12][13][14][15]
On April 29, 2009, Workday announced that it had 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.[16] On October 24, 2011, Workday announced $85 million in new funding, bringing the total capital raised to $250 million. Investors in the latest round included T. Rowe Price, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, Janus, and Bezos Expeditions.[17] As of spring 2012, Workday had 310 customers, ranging from mid-sized businesses to Fortune 500 companies.[18]
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, which "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 its IPO, underscoring investor interest in cloud computing.[3]
2015–present
In 2016, Workday launched a cloud-based student information system[19] to augment its portfolio of financial management and human capital management products. In 2018, Workday acquired Filip Doušek's company Stories.bi.
In 2020, Fortune magazine ranked Workday Inc. at number five on its Fortune List of the Top 100 Companies to Work For in 2020 based on an employee satisfaction survey.[20]
The CEO of Workday was 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 along with Bhusri. Dave Duffield served as the chairman of the board until his resignation in April 2022, after which Aneel Bhusri took over as the chairman.[21]
In November 2021, Workday announced its acquisition of VNDLY, a startup that helps companies manage external workforce personnel, for $510 million.[22]
Adaptive Insights
Adaptive Insights was a software as a service company founded in 2003 and headquartered in Palo Alto, California. The company was acquired by Workday in a $1.55 billion deal completed in August 2018,[29] renaming the company and its core product to Workday Adaptive Planning.
In 2003, Robert S. Hull and Richard L. Dellinger co-founded Adaptive Planning to market enterprise budgeting, forecasting, and reporting software as an alternative to spreadsheet-based planning or larger on-premises software. Adaptive Planning was an early user of the software as a service (SaaS) model for business intelligence and corporate performance management. In 2003, it was incorporated in Delaware as Visus Technology, renamed as Adaptive Planning.[30] It was incubated at Onset Ventures in Menlo Park, California.
In 2009, Adaptive Insights partnered with NetSuite, Inc. and is currently a member of the SuiteCloud Developer Network. The company also integrates with other cloud ERP solutions from Sage Intacct, Microsoft
Lawsuit over hiring algorithm bias
In 2023, Workday was named in a federal class-action lawsuit alleging that its artificial intelligence (AI)-driven hiring tools discriminated against applicants based on age, race, and disability.[38][39] The lead plaintiff, Derek Mobley, claimed that Workday's résumé screening algorithms systematically excluded older candidates and individuals with disabilities from consideration. Workday denied the allegations, stating that its systems were not designed to consider protected characteristics directly, but critics argued that bias emerged through proxy variables in the data.[40]
In May 2025, a U.S. District Court judge allowed the age discrimination claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) to proceed as a collective action.[41] Subsequent rulings required Workday to disclose the list of clients that used its AI hiring features.[42] Legal analysts noted that the case could set a significant precedent for whether software vendors can be held liable under U.S. employment discrimination law when their algorithms are used in hiring at scale.
