HCM platform Justworks wants to IPO

It seems that today is the day for initial public offerings (IPOs). Not only has social media giant Reddit announced its plans to IPO today, but so has human capital management (HCM) platform aimed at small and medium enterprises (SMEs) Justworks.

Justworks, which helps 8,000 SMEs across the US with their benefit offerings, payroll, HR and compliance, wants to list as JW on Nasdaq, but has not yet shared any more details of the IPO.

Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Bank of America are acting as bank runners on the listing.

To date, the HCM platform has $148 million in total funding, including a $50 million Series E in January 2020. This investment has come from the likes of Thrive Capital and Bain Capital, which are serial HR tech funders.

While its revenue jumped 32% in May 2021, Justworks suffered a loss of $5.1 million in the quarter ending in August this year.

HR tech and IPOs

HR tech has generally boomed in 2021; not only has the sector attracted record investment, but a number of HR tech companies have gone public.

Notable examples include Qualtrics, Freshworks, and WalkMe.

Employee experience company Qualtrics announced an IPO in November. It listed more than 21 million shares of its common A stock, as well as a 30-day option for 3 million additional shares. Goldman Sachs also acted as a book-runner on this IPO.

This came after WalkMe listed on Nasdaq and sold its shares at $31 each. Talking about the announcement in July, WalkMe said: “Going public means that we have succeeded in impacting the digital landscape on a massive scale and that our vision, to fundamentally transform the productivity of humanity by harnessing the power of technology, is within our reach.

“Our cloud-based Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) enables organizations to measure, drive, and act to accelerate their digital transformations and discover the full value of their software investments.

“We are proud to say that DAP has already powered the successful business transformations of about 2,000 companies around the world.”

Will 2022 see more IPOs in the HR tech space?