Workday’s ventures arm is using partnerships — not just capital — to secure access to the most compelling AI innovations.
Workday is executing a fundamental strategic shift: the move from enterprise software as a passive system-of-record to a dynamic, AI-powered system-of-action. This is the core of Workday’s mission—to unify the management of people, money, and autonomous digital agents on a single intelligent platform.
Workday Ventures is a driving force in that effort.
Barbry McGann, who leads the fund’s AI investment strategy, describes 2023 as an inflection point. The fund doubled in size just as generative AI moved from novelty to boardroom imperative. Until then, the unit — founded in 2018 — had largely pursued conventional strategic investments: complementary SaaS companies that filled product gaps or extended Workday’s ecosystem.
“More product-gap plays,” as McGann puts it.
The AI surge prompted a sharper thesis. If enterprise software is evolving into fleets of digital agents that execute tasks rather than simply record them, incremental extensions would not be enough. The central question became: how will AI reshape operating models, cost structures and governance across the enterprise?
From that emerged three pillars:
Vertical transformation
The first targets labour-intensive industries where AI agents can materially shift margins. In healthcare, Workday has backed Sully.ai, which automates clinical workflows from note-taking to care coordination. In professional services, Laurel AI, another company Workday Ventures has invested in, focuses on the unglamorous but lucrative mechanics of timekeeping and billing.
These are not experimental side projects. “Real margin hitters,” McGann says — companies aimed squarely at operational efficiency.
AI in the core
The second pillar centres on AI-native tools that sit close to Workday’s core HR and finance domains. Numeric, which applies AI to the financial close process, exemplifies the approach: automation combined with compliance discipline.
As digital workers proliferate, someone must act as what McGann calls the “economic authority” — ensuring autonomous systems operate within financial and HR guardrails. Workday’s bet is that governance, not just automation, will determine which platforms endure.
The governance layer
The third focus is infrastructure: integration layers and identity management for an agent-driven enterprise. Companies such as Astrix Security address the emerging challenge of securing and auditing non-human identities.
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to secure, govern, audit and verify this non-human identity,” McGann says.
Episodes such as the brief but chaotic emergence of Moltbook — a social media experiment designed for AI agents — exposed how quickly innovation can outpace controls. For enterprise software providers, that gap presents both a risk and an opportunity.
“We’re driving our solution as a system of record for agents and human workers,” McGann says. “As our customers put these agents into production, making sure we have the right governance and security around non-human identities has been a focus.”
Barbry McGann will be one of the speakers at the GCVI Summit in Monterey, the largest global gathering of corporate venture investors.
Interested in joining us? There is more information about the Summit here.
Access to the “stratospheric” rounds
Having a thesis is one thing; gaining entry to the most sought-after AI deals is another. The leading rounds are crowded and often priced at levels that test even well-capitalised funds.
Workday Venrtures’ answer is not to compete purely on cheque size but on strategic value.
Since its inception, Workday Ventures has built what it calls a “portfolio experience” function. Startups that take its investment are plugged — without additional cost — into Workday’s partner ecosystem. They receive integration and certification support, co-selling opportunities, exposure at customer events and operational guidance. An advisory bench helps navigate enterprise sales cycles.
The approach appears to resonate. McGann says 78% of deals now come via referrals, and the fund regularly co-invests with firms such as NEA, Greylock, Sequoia, Menlo Ventures and Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as corporate peers including Microsoft’s M12, Salesforce Ventures and Thomson Reuters Ventures.
In an environment where founders prize distribution as much as capital, access to Workday’s customer base can be decisive. “It seems to be the factor,” McGann says, in rounds that might otherwise be “stratospheric”.
The team itself is lean — six people, four focused on investing and two on portfolio support — suggesting a model built on leverage rather than scale.
The strategy does not guarantee entry to every prize, but it does allow Workday to take minority stakes in high-priced rounds where strategic alignment matters more than ownership percentage.
From ecosystem to moat
The venture’s strategy is not a side bet. It signals where Workday believes durable advantage will lie.
If enterprise software evolves into networks of autonomous agents, value will accrue not only to those who build the agents but to those who govern, integrate and monetise them. Through selective investments — and occasional acquisitions such as Paradox and Sana Labs — Workday is assembling an ecosystem designed to anchor that role.
The broader wager is clear: that the next era of enterprise software will belong less to systems that record work, and more to platforms that orchestrate it — securely, compliantly and at scale, with humans in the loop.
Workday is positioning itself accordingly.
See all the recent startup funding rounds backed by Workday Ventures in the CVC Funding Round Database
Maija Palmer
Maija Palmer is editor of Global Venturing and puts together the weekly email newsletter (sign up here for free).
