How Deel co-founder Alex Bouaziz learned the art of the acquisition
Deel, a California-based HR tech startup valued at US$12 billion, has fuelled its international growth with acquisitions — though not all have been equally successful.
The growth of Deel has been explosive. Just five years after its founding, the HR tech company has reached a valuation of USD12 billion ($17.8 billion) and achieved annual recurring revenue of USD500 million.
Deel’s mission is to provide payroll technology globally — with Australian clients including SafetyCulture, Leonardo.Ai and Linktree — a particularly complex challenge given that compliance requirements can vary not only between countries but sometimes even from city to city.
The company’s rapid expansion has been driven in part by acquisitions. To date, it has made 12, including the purchase of Melbourne-based PayGroup. Co-founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz believes startups should prioritise mergers and acquisitions for growth, and he shares with Capital Brief the lessons he’s learned on making them successful.
Deel has also made recent changes at the top level, adding Todd Ford to its board of directors in September and Francis deSouza in May. In this edition of In the Arena, Bouaziz discusses how these appointments are positioning Deel for a future IPO.
