Deel hits $17.3B valuation after raising $300M from big-name VCs

As entertaining as it’s been for the tech industry to watch rival payroll decacorns Deel and Rippling sue each other over a corporate spying scandal, top-tier VCs are apparently not terribly scared off. Deel on Thursday announced that it has raised a $300 million Series E round co-led by A-list fintech VC firm Ribbit Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from existing investors like Coatue Management and General Catalyst.

Deel says it’s been profitable for three years and surpassed $1 billion in ARR, including having a month — September — that hit $100 million in revenue. Deel’s business model focuses on serving global companies, handling the complexities of currency and employment regulation for far-flung international teams. It says it’s now grown to 35,000+ customers with more than 1.5 million workers in over 150 countries.

Those are the types of numbers that attract investment, pending lawsuits or no. (Rippling’s California-filed lawsuit against Deel does not yet have a trial date, and is in the discovery phase, according to court records.) Indeed, Ribbit’s founder, Micky Malka, and a16z founder Ben Horowitz, gave Deel their full-throated supported in the announcement. In prepared statements, Malka said the Ribbit has been “fans” of the HR company for a long time, because it’s a “a brand companies trust,” and Horowitz said that a16z has been “blown away” by Deel’s work to build “the best HR platform” for global companies.

For what it’s worth, the lawsuits have not slowed down Rippling’s fundraising efforts either. In August, Rippling raised a $450 million Series G round at a $16.8 billion valuation.