Workday, Inc. (NASDAQ:WDAY), a Pleasanton, CA-based provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources, has launched a $250m fund.
Workday Ventures is the company’s strategic investment arm focused on identifying, investing, and partnering with early to growth stage companies developing emerging technologies – such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, blockchain, and augmented and virtual reality – that can be applied to the enterprise.
The arm will be run by Workday executives, Leighanne Levensaler and Mark Peek, who have been named managing directors and co-heads.
Levensaler will serve in the role in addition to her position as senior vice president of corporate strategy at Workday, which she took on in 2016 after leading product management for the company’s applications.
Peek, an enterprise industry veteran, brings more than 30 years of finance and operational experience to Workday Ventures, having previously served as co-president as well as chief financial officer at Workday in addition to leadership positions at companies including Amazon and VMware.
The $250m fund comes after Workday announced it will open up its cloud platform, creating new opportunities for its customer and partner ecosystem to extend the power of Workday’s core applications. In addition to funding, Workday Ventures portfolio companies will:
- access to Workday product executives and leadership who can help them navigate the enterprise including building and delivering technologies at scale as well as creating sustainable business models;
- connect to Workday customers; and
- engage at the technology level including access to Workday data scientists, architects, and engineers.
FinSMEs
07/02/2018