Many of the world’s organizations shifted to remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But even as more people are vaccinated and offices are planning re-openings, it’s clear that for some organizations, remote work is here to stay. 

Deel, a startup which provides payroll, compliance tools and other services to help businesses hire remotely, has seen increased demand in the wake of this shift.

And today, the San Francisco company has announced that it has raised $156 million in Series C funding led by the YC Continuity Fund and existing backers Andreessen Horowitz and Spark Capital. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, former Stripe payments guru Lachy Groom, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Jeff Wilke, and Anthony Schiller also participated in the round, among others. 

The raise is notable for a few reasons. For one, it comes just over seven months after Deel raised a $30 million Series B financing. So it is essentially more than 5x the size of that round. It’s also a big deal because it propels Deel, a 3 year-old company, to unicorn status with a $1.25 billion valuation. The raise also comes after a massive year of growth for Deel, which says it saw a “20x” increase in revenue in 2020 with over 1,800 business clients. That’s up from 500 at the time of its September raise.

Co-founded by MIT alumni Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wan, Deel aims to allow businesses “to hire anyone, anywhere, in a compliant manner.” It claims that by using its services, businesses can hire and (Read more...)