Israeli-American automated payroll platform Deel raises $30 million

Israeli-American company Deel, Inc., which developed a payroll platform to pay both full-time staff and independent contractors who are working remotely, has completed a $30 million Series B financing round. The round was led by US venture capital fund Spark Capital with the participation of the company’s previous backers. Another dominant investor in Deel is U.S. venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz, which is one of the world's largest funds.

Deel completed its series B round only four months after closing its series A financing round, in which it raised $14 million. Since it was founded at the end of 2018 the company has raised a total of $48 million. Other investors in the company include the Y-Combinator accelerator and angel investors Nat Friedman, Ryan Petersen, John Zimmer, William Hockey, and Alexis Ohanian. Israel's Sarona Partners Group, founded by Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz’s father, was the first investor in Deel.

Deel employs 36 people around the world, 12 of which are based in Israel. The company's co-founder Israeli citizen Alex Bouazis is only 27. Bouaziz is a graduate of MIT who completed his high school studies when he was only 16. Bouaziz serves as Deel's CEO and is also active in the Israeli venture capital fund Sarona Ventures. His partner in founding Deel, Chinese entrepreneur Shuo Wang, is also a graduate of MIT and is responsible for the business aspects of Deel in his role as Chief Revenue Officer.

The platform that the company has developed allows payment to both full-time employees and independent contractors (freelancers), in compliance with the currency and the labor laws in the employee’s country of origin. The platform is based on a directory built by the company and includes various localized templates for work contracts, which can be used to hire remote employees legally and at short notice.

The platform also enables employers to pay the salaries of their full-time workers through a range of payment channels such as credit card, bank transfer, and automated clearinghouse. Independent contractors can receive their payments through PayPal, Payoneer (which is itself an Israeli company), or bank transfer.

“We’re challenging the notion that companies need to hire within their vicinity,” Buaziz said in a statement. “By bridging localized compliance and payments processes and then automating them, we are making a complex and manual process seamless and expanding our customers' hiring pool to workers from all over the world.”