At a time when anxiety surrounding AI disruption is raging in the enterprise software industry, CRM.US (CRM.US) used a real money investment to cast the strongest vote for “SaaS is not dead.” According to reports, Safrus has led a $166 million funding round for human resources software company HiBoB, valuing the Israeli HR tech startup at around US$3.5 billion. Farallon Capital participated in the follow-up investment, and SAFTSE provided most of the funding in this round. This is the largest round of financing since HiBoB was founded, and it is also a key bet by Safrus on the strategic value of “enterprise data entry” in the AI era.
Transaction panorama: The “data moat” behind the $3.5 billion valuation
HiBoB was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Tel Aviv. It is the developer of the cloud-native human capital management (HCM) platform “Bob”. The platform provides core HR management, payroll management, and employee onboarding services to more than 5,400 customers around the world, covering more than 170 countries. Its customers are mainly medium-sized enterprises, which compete directly with giants such as Workday in the HCM (Human Capital Management) market.
This round of financing raised HiBoB's valuation from US$2.7 billion in the last round of financing in September 2023 to approximately US$3.5 billion. Since its inception, HiBoB has raised more than $700 million in cumulative financing.
HiBOB CEO Ronni Zehavi said the new capital will be used to invest in HR platforms, explore acquisition opportunities, and expand geographically. Zehavi made it clear that the company will not consider an IPO until it has completed AI integration and “will keep all options after 2027.”
Safez's Strategic Logic: Controlling the Nervous Center of the “Hybrid Workforce”
The strategic implications of this investment go far beyond the financial return. At a time when AI agents (AI agents) are increasingly penetrating enterprise workflows, HR software is evolving from an “employee management tool” to a “command and control platform for a mixed workforce (human+AI agent)”.
Seflex is making every effort to advance its AI agent platform AgentForce. As AI agents take on more and more tasks — from lead research to email drafting, from CRM record updates to customer qualification screening — enterprise management faces a fundamental new problem: how to track, manage, and coordinate the work done by humans and AI agents?
HiBob's BOB platform holds the company's core data assets: organizational structure, authority system, compensation framework, and workflow definitions. Saifushi CEO Marc Benioff is clearly interested in HiBOB's strategic card as a “trusted source of enterprise organization data” — any AI agent must be connected to this data system to truly integrate into business operations.
Zehavi put it bluntly in an interview: “SaaS is not dying out. AI is reshaping SaaS.” He further pointed out that HR software won't be replaced by AI any time soon, partly due to security and governance issues: “Which company will replace us with a ready-made HCM system? Absolutely impossible. This system is very complex, and the data is very sensitive.”
Ecological collaboration: Slack integration and the “Claudeforce” puzzle
This judgment is highly consistent with a series of recent AI actions by Safetz. The larger context is Safran's deep binding to Anthropic. On August 26, Seflex and Anthropic jointly released Claudeforce — directly embedding the Claude model into the Salesforce CRM platform and launching the first batch of 37 pre-built sales functions. Safez plans to spend about 300 million US dollars on Anthropic's token in 2026, and already holds about 5 billion US dollars of shares in the company. Saifushi CEO Marc Benioff further stated that the company's holdings in Anthropic could be worth between $30 billion and $40 billion.
Saftex is making every effort to promote the Agentforce platform — an ecosystem for enterprises to build, deploy and manage autonomous AI agents. Agentforce's annualized recurring revenue (ARR) has exceeded $1.5 billion, an increase of more than 240% year over year. Safrus needed partners to help companies deploy and manage these agents at scale — not only to launch them, but to integrate them into the company's operating framework.
The integration of HiBoB and the Saifushi ecosystem has long since paved the way. In June 2026, HiBOB integrated its platform with Slack to bring employee data into AI-driven workflows.
HiBob's role is clearly visible: as the gatekeeper of trusted organizational data in the Seflex ecosystem, providing Claude and AgentForce with the basic data layer needed to deploy AI agents.
Industry Background: Reversal Revaluation Under the SaaS “Doomsday Theory”
This investment comes in a context where the enterprise software industry is facing a fundamental restructuring of valuations. In the first half of 2026, software stocks experienced a large-scale sell-off due to concerns that AI tools might disrupt traditional SaaS business models. Investors are warning of a possible “SaaS end.”
However, Safez's investment sends the opposite signal: a platform that controls trusted organizational data and is deeply embedded in enterprise workflows will not only not depreciate in value in the AI era, but may also become more strategically valuable. Zehavi made it clear that HiBoB “shares the same vision — people and agents (i.e. digital employees) will work side by side.”
SAFTSE's stock price recorded its biggest increase in six years last week, partly easing market concerns about the “end of SaaS.” The company announced the expansion of cooperation with Anthropic and anticipated strong revenue growth, while further consolidating its strategic layout at the enterprise AI infrastructure layer by investing in HiBob.
Zehavi accurately describes this trend: “The next generation of enterprise software won't be built around apps. It will be built around AI agents.” HR software is becoming a “control panel” for hybrid teams (human+agents) — responsible for tracking, managing, and coordinating the work done by humans and AI agents together.
Safrus is proving with actions that AI will not kill SaaS, but will redefine the value anchor of SaaS. Platforms that grasp trusted organizational data and embed it deeply into enterprise workflows will become more indispensable in the AI era.
HiBOB's Zehavi made it clear that the company will not consider an IPO until AI integration is complete, and the decision is not expected to be made until 2027. “I think the threshold for software companies in the open market is much higher than ever before.”