Concur, Infor, and Workday had the most combined acquisitions and investments in unique companies.
To keep up with HR tech startups that are offering new products and services to disrupt and streamline services, established HR companies are revamping their own product offerings, as well as investing in and acquiring newer HR tech companies.
In addition, established HR companies have looked beyond HR software and participated in deals to travel tech software companies such as Room 77 and Hipmunk, workplace collaboration tools such as Anaplan and Tidemark Systems, and big data analytics companies such as Datameer and Predictix.
Using CB Insights’ Business Social Graph, we visualized how some of the biggest HR software providers and their corporate investment arms and innovation funds are making investments and acquisitions.
Specifically, we analyzed the investment activity of 20 corporations, including any of their venture arms or separately managed funds. Each corporation or HR tech company on this list has invested in or acquired at least 2 companies since 2012.
- Concur
- Infor
- Workday and Workday Ventures
- Randstad and Randstad Innovation Fund
- StepStone
- Kronos
- CareerBuilder
- SEEK
- Automatic Data Processing
- Monster Worldwide
- Paychex
- ManpowerGroup
- Sage Group
- Bullhorn
- Asure Software
- TriNet
- HireVue
- Hired
- WageWorks
- Cornerstone onDemand
We selected both public and private companies that are primarily focused on HR tech services including, Human Capital Management (HCM), payroll, and financial management solutions and software. We did not include enterprise software companies such as SAP and Oracle that have recently expanded into HCM through acquisition, but are not primarily focused on HR services.
In the graph below, investments are denoted by green lines, acquisitions by orange lines.
Please click to enlarge – image includes investments from 2012-2016.
Key takeaways from the BSG
- Concur Technologies is the most active investor on our list with 16 investments in 12 unique companies. Additionally, Concur made 4 acquisitions. Combined, Concur has invested in or acquired 16 unique companies, the most of any other investor on the list. Concur’s largest investment during the period was a $30.3M Series C in Q1’13 to travel tech company Room 77, which was later acquired by Lola Travel company in Q4’16. Concur’s latest acquisition was of travel comparison website Hipmunk in Q3’16. Concur was acquired by enterprise application software company SAP in Q3’14 for a value of approximately $8.3B.
- Infor, a SaaS HR management company, is the most active acquirer on the list with 13 acquisitions since 2012. While Infor has been very active on the acquisition side, it has only made 1 investment, a $25M corporate minority investment in Predictix, a data analytics provider for the retail industry, which Infor later went on to acquire. Another notable acquisition was of GT Nexus, a cloud-based business network and execution platform for global trade and supply chain management, in Q3’15 at a value of $675M. Combined, Infor has invested in or acquired 13 unique companies, putting it in second place overall, in a tie with Workday, a competitor.
- Workday invested in 8 unique companies and acquired 5, for a combined total of 13 investments or acquisitions, as noted above. Workday participated in two of the largest investments since 2012, a $100M Series D in Q2’14 and a $90M Series E investment in Q1’16 to unicorn Anaplan. Anaplan is a cloud-based collaboration tool for teams. Other notable investments in which Workday participated include a $25M Series F to Tidemark Systems, a performance management and analytics tool, which included smart money investor Andreessen Horowitz. Workday also participated in a $19M Series D to Datameer, a self-service data analytics tool, which included smart money investor Kleiner Perkins.
- Notably, when looking at all investments and acquisitions by HR tech corporates, acquisitions are much more common. Approximately 75% of the HR tech corporates’ private market activity were M&A deals.
- Some of the investors on our list were acquired during the analysis period but continued to invest and operate under the original company name. This includes Concur, which was acquired by SAP in Q3’14, as noted above.
- Monster Worldwide, which went public in 1996, was acquired by Randstad Holding in Q3’16 for $429M.
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