On Friday, Workday (NASDAQ: WDAY) held the biggest tech IPO since Facebook.
Unlike Facebook, Workday does not run a consumer-facing business that claims to have a billion users. Instead, it’s a software-as-a-service solution provider for human resources management (and nowadays adjacent solutions). While not anything as sexy as Facebook, the company is now valued at over $8b.
Why is the market valuing Workday so highly? As usual, it’s a combination of several factors (some very likely exaggerated). But most importantly, is the belief that the new SaaS solutions will eventually replace many of the existing on-premise solutions. Or, as Aneel Bhusri, Workday co-founder said in an interview, “the incumbents are not prepared.”