ServiceNow [NYSE:NOW], a Santa Clara, California-based AI platform for business transformation, continues to review potential transformational M&A as a means to drive shareholder value, CFO Gina Mastantuono said.

Host Raimo Lenschow asked Mastantuono about her thoughts on M&A, at the Barclays 22nd Annual Global Technology Conference held on 11 December. She replied that both herself and ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott have been transparent about how the company sees M&A, which centres on driving customer value.

“And we’ve been able to drive significant customer and shareholder value organically for a number of years,” Mastantuono said. “We’ve also done a number of tuck-in acquisitions, talent acquisitions. I talked about Element AI earlier, many each and every year. You’ll continue to see us do that. We’ve also continuously said we wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we weren’t looking at other larger transformational types of M&A, but our hurdle rates are high because we’ve been able to really drive such strong organic growth.”

While noting that management doesn’t need to undertake M&A to reach their growth targets, it is an available option to accelerate top-line growth, she added.

“So, in a nutshell, no change in how we’ve been thinking about things,” Mastantuono summarised.

Element AI, a Quebec, Canada-based artificial intelligence company, was bought by ServiceNow in November 2020, as reported. The move was one of the first transactions undertaken by Mastantuono and CEO McDermott when they joined ServiceNow, the CFO said during the 11 December conference.

More recent whole company transactions include the purchase of Germany-based Raytion in July. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, was undertaken to enhance GenAI-powered search and knowledge management capabilities on ServiceNow’s Now platform. Since 2001, Raytion has been implementing and operating large-scale business solutions for Global 500 companies and organisations worldwide, as reported.

Separately, ServiceNow has also invested in businesses, as per the November-dated announcement by Oyster, with the latter securing new financing from ServiceNow Ventures, the global strategic investment arm of ServiceNow. The new funding followed Oyster undertaking a Series D round, which valued the company at USD 1.2bn and brought the total capital raised to USD 291m, the announcement added.

In October, xtype, a software company for multi-instance management on the ServiceNow platform, announced it had raised USD 21m via a Series A funding round led by Norwest Venture Partners, with participation from ServiceNow Ventures and existing investors including Columbia Capital and Inner Loop Capital. This round marked a significant leap forward in xtype’s mission to revolutionize how organisations manage their ServiceNow environments, the deal release noted.

ServiceNow’s AI platform for business transformation connects people, processes, data, and devices to increase productivity and maximise business outcomes. For the three months ending September, ServiceNow recorded total revenue of USD 2.8bn, a 22% increase from a year earlier. Free cash flow amounted to USD 471m.

It has a market capitalisation of USD 236.3bn.