Workday Inc. today announced plans to acquire Peakon ApS, a Copenhagen-based startup with a cloud service for collecting employee feedback.

The deal is an all-cash transaction valued at about $700 million. Workday expects to wrap up the acquisition by the end of April.

Nasdaq-listed Workday makes software that enterprises use to manage mission-critical back-office processes. The company focuses on three processes in particular: accounting, business planning, which encompasses tasks such as estimating the cost of a market expansion initiative, and human resources. It’s that last market where Workday plans to deploy the technology it will gain through the Peakon acquisition.

Peakon’s cloud service enables organizations to measure employee sentiment and collect feedback by sending out surveys. For companies with globally distributed workforces, artificial intelligence features built into the service can translate surveys into over 50 languages. Another set of AI models automatically extracts key information from employee responses to help managers see poll results at a glance.

Peakon says companies rely on its service to identify ways of improving recruiting, onboarding and other HR processes. Another use case the startup targets is helping executives collect feedback from workers at the divisions they lead. So far, six-year-old Peakon claims to have processed more than 150 million survey responses for 1,000-plus companies, including familiar names such as Verizon Communications Inc. and Capgemini SE.

Workday also provides features for measuring employee sentiment as part of its HR software products. The acquisition will enhance that part of the company’s portfolio, while potentially also boosting its collection of AI-supported workforce analytics tools. The workforce data collected by Peakon’s service might enable Workday’s analytics tools to generate more accurate insights. 

“The combined technologies of both businesses could yield insights that may have a truly transformative effect on how people manage organizations,” Peakon Chief Executive Phil Chambers stated in a post on the Workday blog. “Workday excels at helping enable customers to leverage their data. Together, we’ll be able to help drive greater productivity, talent development, and employee retention for our customers.”

Peakon raised more than $60 million in funding prior to the deal.  

Photo: Workday