Papaya Global valuation surges to $3.7 billion on back of $250 million Series D

Just six months after joining the unicorn club, Israeli workforce management company Papaya Global announced on Saturday that its valuation has surged to $3.7 billion following its $250 million Series D. The new funding round was led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners and joined by Tiger Global, with participation from existing investors - Scale Venture Partners, Bessemer Venture Partners, IVP, Alkeon Capital, Workday Ventures, access industries and Group 11. The new investment brings Papaya’s total funding to $440 million, with the company's valuation increasing by 10x since September 2020.

Papaya Global was founded in 2016 by Eynat Guez (CEO), Ruben Drong (CPO), and Ofer Herman (CTO). It started out operating on a bootstrap modal, relying largely on Guez’s experience from running RelocationSource, a leading company in the executive relocation sector.

"I believe that this is our final funding round before going public, but in today's market everything is fluid," Guez told Calcalist. "We have a crazy year of sales and we will register a 400% year-on-year increase with an annual revenue rate of $90 million. We have met all the targets we set ourselves at the beginning of the year and have exceeded them very aggressively."

Guez admitted she is surprised by the company's growth over such a short period of time. "I didn't believe that we would be in this situation at this point in time. However, I already felt that we were building something big following our Series A round."

Papaya’s SaaS software unifies all workforce management tasks under one platform – from onboarding through payroll and payments – in over 140 countries. Papaya’s team currently spans Tel Aviv, New York, Austin, London, Kiev, and Melbourne.

"With companies switching to remote work and compliance becoming increasingly complex, we are seeing substantial demand for Papaya’s solution, even in a challenging business environment,” added Guez.