Workday, a provider of popular human capital management and financial management software, has entered an agreement to acquire Mason, Ohio-based startup VNDLY for $510 million. VNDLY makes a specialized ERP software built to accommodate contingent employees and other external workers, and has raised $58 million since its founding in 2017. Its software should be a strong addition to Workday’s suite of human resource solutions. With the increasing number of contractors and the rise of the “gig economy,” companies need innovative solutions to manage the new part-time workforce; Pete Schlampp, Chief Strategy Officer at Workday, believes the acquisition will fortify the company’s future offerings.
The addition of VNDLY to Workday’s popular finance, HR, and planning systems should save workers from cumbersome context switching by providing an all-encompassing workforce management solution. Workday executives intend to leverage the VNDLY product portfolio to holistically optimize workforces through smart financial planning, compliance assurance, and labor management. Additionally, the company will offer further investments into the VNDLY managed services partner network while also providing integrations for third-party systems. With this acquisition, VNDLY becomes the latest midwestern startup to be picked up by a larger enterprise; Salesforce purchased Indianapolis-based ExactTarget for $2.5 billion in 2013, and Cisco acquired Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Duo for $2.35 billion in 2018.
