From left: Deel co-founders Shuo Wang and Alex Bouaziz. Image: Deel
On the back of a $14m Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, Deel is expanding its remote hiring platform to Europe.
San Francisco fintech Deel is rolling out its product in Ireland and the rest of Europe. The start-up has created a platform that aims to help employers hire and pay remote workers anywhere in the world, without worrying about foreign laws, tax systems and international payroll.
It was developed on the idea that a significant obstacle to international remote working was that employers need to follow different regulations for each employee they hire in another country, which can result in expensive legal work and due diligence for the employer.
Although the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in widespread remote working, Deel claimed that many companies still aren’t set up to manage international payroll. “This can make paying remote workers expensive, with high international transfer fees, rubbish exchange rates and a large administrative overhead,” the start-up added.
Deel’s platform
Deel’s platform enables companies to hire and pay remote workers in more than 100 currencies, without having to deal with local legal and tax regulations.
Emma Korhonen, human resources coordinator at Dutch file sharing business WeTransfer, said the company has been using Deel in recent months.
“Due to Covid-19 we went from a remote-friendly company to a remote-first company,” she said. “Due to temporary immigration service freezes in different countries, we were looking for a solution to still hire strong talent from abroad.”
The Deel platform was initially launched in the US last year through Y Combinator. In May 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic put remote working under the spotlight, the company raised $14m in a fully remote Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz.
Dan Westgarth, chief operating officer at Deel, said that raising money during the pandemic was “exciting” for the start-up, which was founded by Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang. The firm now has 30 employees based in 15 different countries around the globe.
“It was an uncertain time, uncertainty created an opportunity and Andreessen Horowitz saw that huge opportunity and provided us with the capital to accelerate the growth of our business,” Westgarth added.
