Deel raises $300 million at $17.3 billion valuation amid legal turmoil
Investors back the global payroll company despite ongoing espionage allegations and courtroom battles.
Deel, the global HR and payroll platform, has raised $300 million in Series E funding led by Ribbit Capital alongside longtime backers Andreessen Horowitz and Coatue Management, propelling its valuation to $17.3 billion. The round marks one of the largest private financings in the HR tech sector this year and comes despite the company’s ongoing entanglement in a high-profile corporate espionage dispute with rival Rippling.
The latest investment caps what Deel describes as a record year. The company surpassed $1 billion in annual recurring revenue earlier in 2025 and has now achieved three consecutive years of profitability. In September, Deel logged its first $100 million revenue month and reported processing $22 billion in annual payroll across 150 countries for 37,000 clients.
In February of this year, American venture capital firm General Catalyst and the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, Mubadala, purchased Deel shares for $300 million as part of a secondary transaction at a valuation of about $12 billion, similar to the company's last fundraising round in 2022.
“We’re proud to welcome some of the world’s best investors as partners in this next chapter for Deel,” said Alex Bouaziz, the company’s co-founder and CEO. “This round is about doubling down on the global payroll infrastructure we’ve built from the ground up. We’re reimagining how payroll should work for the next century - fluid, real-time, and truly borderless.”
Deel plans to use the new capital to accelerate acquisitions, expand AI-driven automation, and extend its native payroll coverage to over 100 countries by 2029. The company also aims to strengthen its internal systems and broaden its HR suite, which has seen triple-digit growth across multiple product lines, including U.S. payroll, global payroll, and HR information systems.
The funding comes as Deel continues to face fallout from an espionage and racketeering lawsuit filed by competitor Rippling in U.S. federal court. The case, which erupted into public view earlier this year, centers on allegations that Deel executives, including Bouaziz and his father Philippe, oversaw efforts to obtain confidential data from rivals through covert channels.
A former Rippling contractor, Keith O’Brien, admitted in April to passing internal documents to Deel for monthly payments before being caught in a sting operation. Deel has denied all wrongdoing and filed a countersuit accusing Rippling of running its own infiltration scheme. Both sides remain locked in litigation with no resolution in sight.
