Workday billionaire Duffield mints his third billion-dollar firm Ridgeline

At 85, David Duffield has created his third billion-dollar company.

Ridgeline, which makes software for investment-management firms, raised $250 million at a $1.4 billion valuation. Duffield co-founded the firm in 2017 and currently serves as its chairman. He led the round, which also included outside investors, according to a company statement.

“We see what’s happening with AI and we see the opportunity for what we could accomplish,” Ridgeline’s Chief Executive Officer David Blair said in an interview. “We decided to invest heavily in research and development and that is really the foundation for the raise.”

ADVERTISEMENT

CONTINUE READING BELOW

Blair said he meets Duffield weekly for breakfast at Incline Village, the affluent Lake Tahoe community in northern Nevada where the billionaire lives. Ridgeline has an office in Incline Village, as well as in Reno, New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Duffield has started six companies, including two he took public: human-resources software firms PeopleSoft and Workday Inc. With a net worth of $13.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, he funds a series of philanthropic endeavours, including a fund named after his late miniature schnauzer.

Duffield has invested more than $400 million of his own money into Ridgeline since the company’s inception. The firm has more than 600 employees and clients have committed over $750 billion in assets under management to its platform, up 50% from a year earlier.

Ridgeline is on track to surpass $1 trillion on the platform by the end of January 2027. Blair said he “would love” to see it become Duffield’s third company to go public.

© 2026 Bloomberg

#Workday #billionaire #Duffield #mints #billiondollar #firm #Ridgeline