Anaplan Inc

Market position

Anaplan describes itself, and is described in press coverage, as a market leader in cloud-based connected planning and enterprise performance management. Forbes coverage characterized it as a startup taking share in an approximately $20 billion business planning software market from IBM, Oracle and SAP, and it reached unicorn status in January 2016 as the second UK-founded company to achieve a $1 billion valuation. Thoma Bravo described Anaplan's cloud-native enterprise planning solution as "the best product in a large, important, high growth market". Anaplan was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Performance Management with the highest Ability to Execute.

Anaplan differentiates on its proprietary in-memory calculation technology — the patented Hyperblock engine and the Polaris Calculation Engine — which it presents as enabling real-time contextualization of performance and large-scale what-if modelling. More recently it emphasizes combining a deterministic calculation engine with probabilistic LLM-based AI to produce auditable, accurate answers, together with a domain-specific data ontology for finance, supply chain, retail, sales and operations, and role-based agents. Press coverage has framed Anaplan as a faster-growing challenger taking share in business planning software from incumbents such as IBM, Oracle and SAP, and from spreadsheet-based processes.

Technology

Anaplan's platform is built on Hyperblock, a patented in-memory database and calculation engine for business planning, and the Polaris Calculation Engine. The current architecture combines deterministic calculations with probabilistic large-language-model AI, connected data across source systems, workflows and role-based agents, plus a data ontology encoding business context for finance, supply chain, retail planning, sales and operations, with the stated aim of auditable and accurate outputs.

Go-to-market

Anaplan sells directly to large enterprises and works through a partner ecosystem of resellers and implementation partners — more than 200 partners at the time of the 2022 take-private and 250+ subsequently. It supports go-to-market with customer case studies (for example Coca-Cola, Unilever International Group, Generali, JLR and LinkedIn), analyst reports and recognitions such as the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Sales Performance Management, and events and product demos such as the "AI at the Core" session. Marketplace offerings (Anaplan Hub / App Hub) and packaged intelligent applications are used to shorten deployment time.

Large global enterprises and their finance, supply chain, sales and marketing, HR and retail planning functions. Anaplan reports over 2,800 brands as customers, including 48% of the Fortune 50 and 50% of the world's 20 most valuable companies; named customers include The Coca-Cola Company, Unilever International Group, Generali, JLR, LinkedIn and Starlight Investments.

Geography

Founded in Yorkshire, England, Anaplan was long headquartered in San Francisco, California (625 2nd St., Suite 101); Wikipedia lists its headquarters as Miami, Florida, with locations in 13 countries and worldwide service coverage. In 2016 it had customers in 20 countries.

History

Anaplan was founded in 2006 in Yorkshire, England by Guy Haddleton, Sue Haddleton and Michael Gould, and raised its first venture capital within a year of its first sales in 2010. Frederic Laluyaux was brought in as CEO in 2012 and departed in April 2016; during his tenure Anaplan acquired its UK reseller Vue Analytics (2013), launched the Anaplan Hub marketplace (2014) and the App Hub (November 2014), and hired James Budge as CFO ahead of a public listing. In April 2016 it acquired analytics brand Chartcube, and in January 2017 appointed Frank A. Calderoni CEO. Calderoni took Anaplan public on the NYSE (ticker PLAN) on 12 October 2018; the company had filed in September 2018 to raise up to $100 million. In August 2019 Anaplan announced the acquisition of Israeli-founded predictive marketing and sales analytics firm Mintigo, and in November 2019 it was named to the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.

In March 2022 Thoma Bravo announced a definitive agreement to take Anaplan private for $10.7 billion; the price was subsequently renegotiated to approximately $10.4 billion ($63.75 per share), with Thoma Bravo asserting that Anaplan had breached the merger agreement by overpaying new workers, though commentators linked the change to the broader market downturn. The deal closed on 22 June 2022, Anaplan's stock was delisted from the NYSE, Frank Calderoni stepped down and Charles Goodman was appointed Chairman and interim CEO. Anaplan also acquired the applications division of partner Vuealta in 2022 and began significant layoffs in June 2023. Wikipedia lists the company's headquarters as Miami, Florida with Charles Gottdiener as CEO.

Risks & controversies

Thoma Bravo renegotiated its agreed buyout price down from $10.7 billion to approximately $10.4 billion, stating that Anaplan had breached the merger agreement by overpaying new workers; commentators linked the reduction to the broader market downturn, and several law firms publicly announced investigations of the buyout on behalf of investors. In June 2023, following the take-private, Anaplan began major layoffs reported as affecting between 119 and 500 employees. Earlier, in March 2020, Anaplan missed fiscal Q4 billings expectations, which the company attributed to Americas leadership changes that delayed closing large new-customer deals. The company also experienced repeated CEO turnover (Laluyaux 2012–2016, Calderoni 2017–2022, an interim CEO in 2022).