ServiceNow was founded as Glidesoft, Inc. in 2003 by Fred Luddy, and later incorporated in California in 2004.[3] Luddy had previously served aschief technology officer (CTO) forPeregrine Systems, an enterprise software company based in San Diego, until 2002.[4] In founding the company, Luddy intended to provide the same services previously available from the then defunct Peregrine Systems.[4]
Luddy was the only employee until mid-2005[4] whenUS$2.5 million inventure financing from JMI Equity allowed Glidesoft to hire five additional people.[4] In 2006, the company changed its name to Service-Now.com.[5] In 2007, ServiceNow reported an annual revenue ofUS$13 million and opened its firstSilicon Valley office, inSan Jose.[6] 2007 was also the first year that the company "went cash flow positive".[4]
As of January 2011[update], the company had 275 employees in its San Diego, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, London and Frankfurt offices, as well as a partnership withAccenture who had more than 100 ServiceNow consultants.[4] At this time, the company was sometimes known as "Service-now".[4] By April 2011, the company had namedFrank Slootman aschief executive officer.[6]
In 2018,Forbes magazine named it number one on its list of the world's most innovative companies.[8]
In October 2019, the company announced that CEOJohn Donahoe would be succeeded byBill McDermott, formerly CEO ofSAP SE at the end of the calendar year.[9] In January 2020, Bill appointed Gina Mastantuono as Chief Financial Officer.[10] Under her leadership, ServiceNow crossed $10 billion in revenue in 2024 and grew its subscription revenue at a 26% compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2024, earning the company a spot on theFortune 500 list. Mastantuono was named President while continuing as CFO in 2025.[11]
In May 2023, Nvidia announced a partnership with ServiceNow to bring AI services to major corporations. This partnership aims to utilize company-specific data in the new AI service, distinguishing it from the AI advancements made by OpenAI and ChatGPT.[12]
As of December 2023, the number of employees in ServiceNow was estimated to be around 23,000.[13]
In 2024, the platform was reported to have leaked potentially highly confidential data from the "knowledge base" module of over a thousand corporate users due to a misconfiguration of its access control settings.[14]
In October 2024, the company announced its plans to invest $1.5 billion in the UK.[15] Its data centers there are located in the cities of London andNewport, Wales.
In September 2025, ServiceNow announced that it was expanding into Florida, with a new office location inWest Palm Beach.[16]
January 2017: Machine learning startup DxContinuum[21]
October 2017: San Diegohuman-centered design firm Telepathy; the acquisition doubled the size of ServiceNow's internal design agency, the Design Experience Organization[3]
October 2017: SkyGiraffe, an enterprise mobility company backed by Microsoft Ventures. SkyGiraffe formed the basis for ServiceNow's Mobile Platform, released in March 2019.[22]
ServiceNow is aplatform-as-a-service, that is designed to supportIT service management andhelp desk functionality with automated workflows. Their fee model was based on a cost per user (seat) per month, with that cost ranging down fromUS$100.[4]
The ServiceNow script is written inJavaScript, with database queries being made using a proprietary object-oriented API called Glide.[54] In July 2023, the company releasedgenerative AI summarization and text-to-code features.[55]
US$13.28 billion (2025)