Payroll, benefits, onboarding and other professional services provider Remote, has completed a fund-raising round of $155 million according to ann azevedotechcrunch. The valuation of $1 billion has been confirmed by its Dutch Co-Founder & CEO, Job van der Voort. The NYC-based Remote saw Accel leading its Series B round, while other investors like Day One Ventures, Sequoia, Two Sigma, Index Ventures, and General Catalyst also participated.
Remote will be using its funds to globally expand its business. The company already holds ownership of its entire infrastructure, while offering HR services in the form of functional legal entities for 50 global nations. It is targeting expanding this to 80 countries by end 2022. The platform will also get new tools pertaining to equity incentives, immigration and visa matters, benefits, and relocation of employees.
Van der Voort stated that the company is aiming for whole-stack ownership, encompassing in-house expertise, operations, entities, payroll, visa, immigration, benefits, and more. He also talked of the core intention being the development of infrastructure products and those of a foundational nature, since they automatically ensure better quality and reduced prices eventually. Remote has its packages beginning from $149 each month although they go upwards thereafter. Revenues for the platform have gone up by a whopping 65X according to the company, clearly indicating greater engagement from its core user base. There are several competing players in the segment including bigger start-ups like Oyster which recently got funding of $50 million, Deel (valuation of $1.25 billion) and Papaya Global (valuation over $1 billion currently) along with smaller players. However, the entire market ecosystem seems to be on the rise for these companies.
Remote is also targeting the development of newer partnership integrations with other service providers. Its Global Employee API has just been launched with the first customer being HR portal Rippling. Remote is also integrating with Greenhouse, the applicant tracking mechanism, for the onboarding procedure for new employees. Remote last raised $35 million in Series A funding last November. It has grown its customer by seven times with a 10X jump in platform users ever since.
Partner at Accel, Miles Clement, stated that Remote is driving a paradigm shift in hiring processes for companies. He added that their new Global Employee API will enable access to efficient global employment knowledge, infra and also help HR providers to scale up globally at impossibly high speeds. The company itself has 220 employees working remotely throughout 47 countries from November 2020. Van der Voort is based in Amsterdam, while the CTO, Marcelo Lebre, is based in Lisbon.
