Remote work revolution helps Deel reach $295M in ARR • TechCrunch
The ‘global HR platform’ says it is EBITDA positive, confirms $12 billion valuation
Fintech-turned-HR outfit Share hit $295 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) by the end of 2022, company co-founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz shared Today.
That’s a 417.5% increase from the $57 million in ARR achieved by the end of 2021.
The massive jump in ARR is impressive by normal standards, but especially considering the challenging macro environment that startups everywhere faced last year. Deel says it calculates ARR as monthly recurring SaaS revenue x 12. Bouaziz told TechCrunch that a large portion of ARR is from the company’s EOR (Employer of Record) business.
Bouaziz also confirmed today the company’s $12 billion valuation, which we reported in May at the time of Deel’s $50 million raise. At the time, Deel did not confirm this valuation, apparently choosing to wait until it had full-year ARR numbers to share.
Bouaziz also told TechCrunch that Deel is profitable, having been EBITDA positive since September. Furthermore, Deel claims that it earns a margin of 85%. In other words, for every dollar of revenue generated, it keeps 85 cents.
Bouaziz and Shuo Wang started remote-first, San Francisco-based Deel in 2019 as an EOR — with the mission of allowing companies to hire employees and contractors in other countries “in less than five minutes.” Deel also says it gives companies the ability to pay teams in more than 150 currencies with “just a click.” It has since evolved its strictly fintech model into what it describes as one “full stack” “truly global HR platform” designed “to manage the entire workforce according to the requirements in one system – from direct employees to international workers and everything in between.”
On January 11, we reported on Partial acquisition of Capbase for an undisclosed amount in a cash and share deal, marking its entry into the share management space.
Deel says it has more than 15,000 customers, including Nike, Subway, Reebok, Forever 21 and Klarna, and that it has “paid $5 billion in wages to hundreds of thousands of workers.”
In a written statement issued today, Klarna Chief Operating and Expansion officer Camilla Giesecke said: “We are delighted to announce Deel as Klarna’s global partner for talent onboarding and payroll management.”
In a blog post today, Deel also said it is offering a new basic product, Deel HR, free to any business with fewer than 200 people. It also unveiled a Deel Engage, a set of HR Slack plugins designed “to help distributed teams build stronger culture, improve employee engagement and measure adoption with powerful metrics.” The startup also announced the expansion of its global payroll offering by building what it described as its “first in-house payroll engine,” starting in the US. The expansion aims to help companies hire globally without opening legal entities and consolidating payroll, among other things, Deel said.
Over the past year, the global HR space has heated up. In October, for example, Rippling revealed its own global payroll offering, saying it specifically competed with companies like Deel.
Want more fintech news in your inbox? Sign up here.
Have a news tip or insider information on a topic we covered? We would love to hear from you. You can reach me via Signal at 408.404.3036. Or you can send us a message at [email protected]. If you prefer to remain anonymous, click here to contact uswhich includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and various encrypted messaging apps.
