Month: October 2021

With customers like Coinbase and Shopify, remote hiring startup Deel raises $425M at a $5.5B valuation

Posted on by marwa

As more people continue to work remotely, organizations globally have had to adjust — particularly when it comes to onboarding new employees and figuring out how to pay them, in some cases, across borders.

As a result, Deel —  a San Francisco-based startup which provides payroll, compliance tools and other services to help businesses hire remotely — has seen a massive surge in demand.

Now almost exactly six months after raising $156 million at a $1.25 billion valuation, the startup is announcing it has raised $425 million in a Series D funding round that gives it a valuation of $5.5 billion. (The Information had reported in late September that the deal was in the works).

Y Combinator-backed CostCertified lands $8.45M to build the ‘Amazon for construction’

Posted on by marwa

CostCertified, a Canadian startup which provides real-time, interactive residential construction estimates, raised $8.45 million in a seed round of funding.

FUSE, a Pacific Northwest venture firm which counts former Microsoft CFO John Connors and Seattle Seahawks linebacker Bobby Wagner as venture partners, led the round.

The company is also backed by Y Combinator (having participated in the accelerator’s S21 batch), I2BF Global Ventures, Soma Capital and a number of proptech/construction tech founders such as Willy Schlacks, CEO and co-founder of EquipmentShare; Ryan Sutton-Gee, PlanGrid co-founder and former COO; Jonathan Wasserstrum, co-founder and CEO of SquareFoot and Bill Smith, founder and CEO of Landing.

Parker Conrad’s Rippling is now valued at $6.5 billion — more than Zenefits at its peak

Posted on by marwa

Founded by entrepreneur Parker Conrad in 2013, the HR company Zenefits was quickly anointed one of the fast-growing companies in Silicon Valley, with a valuation that soared to $4.5 billion within three years. Then it began to fall apart. The company was discovered to face compliance issues. Conrad was forced to resign. And Zenefits’s valuation was slashed in half, with more than 60% of the company’s employees laid off over numerous rounds afterward.

GreenPark Sports raises $31M ahead of NFT drop

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GreenPark Sports today revealed it has closed a successful Series B round, raising $31 million. This investment comes just as GreenPark is preparing its first NFT drop.

GreenPark is a mobile platform that marries the communities of sports fans and esports fans. According to GreenPark’s site, members can “suit up for your favorite team and go head-to-head against rivals in epic battles to win Fanergy.”

Razorpay Targets $4B Valuation After Next Fundraising Round

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Indian mobile wallet firm Razorpay is talking to large global funds about raising $200 million to $250 million at a $4 billion valuation, two people familiar with the talks said in a Mint report.

Razorpay is talking to hedge funds including Tiger Global Management, Coatue Management, D1 Capital Partners and technology-focused funds DST Global, Dragoneer Investment Group and Falcon Edge Capital, among others, the sources told Mint anonymously.

Sequoia Capital, Matrix Partners and Rabbit Capital have already invested in Razorpay. It’s unclear if those companies or other existing investors would give up their ownership stakes as part of the latest fundraising round.

Earlier this year, Razorpay raised $160 million at a $3 billion valuation as part of a plan to bulk up its business banking unit.

“Players such as Razorpay are looking at acquisitions on the talent pooling side, besides targeting a bit matured places in the B2B SaaS (software as a service) space,” one of the sources told Mint.