This post was originally published on this site
Deel on Thursday (October 16th) announced that it has raised a $300 million Series E round at a $17.3B valuation co-led by A-list fintech VC firm Ribbit Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors like Coatue Management and General Catalyst.
Deel says it’s been profitable for three years and surpassed $1 billion in ARR, including having a month — September — that hit $100 million in revenue (implying a $1.2 billion revenue run-rate). Deel’s business model focuses on serving global companies, handling the complexities of currency and employment regulation for far-flung international teams. It says it’s now grown to 35,000+ customers with more than 1.5 million workers in over 150 countries.
Deel’s new valuation puts it ahead of its fierce competitor Rippling, making it the most valuable privately held HR Tech startup despite raising half as much capital ($1.0B raised to date for Deel versus $1.9B for Rippling). While the new valuation is a step-up from their 2022 raise, it was done at a dramatically lower ARR multiple of ~14x that falls in line with that of public high-growth SaaS. Zooming in on HR Tech comps, Workday and ADP both trade at ~6x NTM revenue with 16% and 6%
