Qualtrics CEO Ryan Smith. Photo credit: Web Summit on Flickr, under Creative Commons license

In less than two years after acquiring survey software platform Qualtrics, SAP, the German software giant, has announced its intent to spin off the company through an initial public offering in the U.S., where it’s based. The company will, however, still retain a majority stake in Qualtrics. Notably, Qualtrics had filed for a public offering and was en route to one before SAP swooped in with an $8 billion offer and successfully grabbed the company in late 2018. The current markets seem favorable for technology companies so it’s no surprise SAP may be looking to unlock more value from its acquisition of Qualtrics.

“SAP’s acquisition of Qualtrics has been a great success and has outperformed our expectations with 2019 cloud growth in excess of 40 percent, demonstrating very strong performance in the current setup,” SAP CEO Christian Klein said in a press statement. Qualtrics, as a company, seems to feel that the public market is the best-suited place for its operations going forward. Since being acquired by SAP, the Utah-based company has operated independently, with its founder and management team prior to being acquired still running the show. Qualtrics is led by CEO Ryan Smith, who will continue to run the show in the case that Qualtrics goes public and would be the company’s largest individual shareholder.