Australia-based employee management platform Deputy has raised $81 million in a series B round of funding led by IVP, with participation from OpenView, Square Peg Capital, and EVP.
Founded out of a Sydney suburb in 2008, Deputy is an all-in-one platform that covers pretty much all bases in the workforce management sphere, from rota-setting to timesheets, performance management, task-assignment, and company news broadcasts. The company claims more than 1 million users across 90,000 businesses — including such big names as Amazon, Uber, Hubspot, and McDonald’s — who use Deputy’s tools to help manage their hourly paid contractors.
Deputy had raised $25 million via a series A round last year, and with another $81 million in the bank the startup said it plans to double down on its product development and global expansion.
“There are 2.3 billion hourly paid workers in the world today, but too many of these are still managing their jobs in archaic ways,” said Deputy cofounder and CEO Ashik Ahmed. “The opportunity here is huge: We envisage a day when every single shift being worked is powered by Deputy — and this funding allows us to build the best product and engineering team in the world that helps us get there.”
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
Above: Deputy: Scheduling
Nabbing Silicon Valley’s IVP as a lead backer is a notable coup for Deputy, given the stature of IVP’s recent exits, including Dropbox, which went public this year; GitHub, which sold to Microsoft for north of $7 billion; and Shazam, which was bought by Apple. Other big names in IVP’s portfolio include Netflix, Snap, Slack, and Twitter.
“IVP has a long history backing some of the most forward-thinking technology companies, many of which are solving some of the world’s biggest problems, and Deputy certainly fits within that criteria,” added IVP general partner Eric Liaw, who now joins Deputy’s board of directors.
Shift
The broader workforce has seen a shift away from permanence to the “gig economy” and similar short-term positions. With the evolving employment landscape in mind, venture capitalists have been betting big on myriad recruitment platforms — including marketplaces specializing in short-term workers, such as Shiftgig, which connects employers with jobseekers, and Job Today, which offers a 24-hour recruitment platform.
“The future of work is transforming dramatically,” Liaw continued. “In a trend that started decades ago, businesses and workers around the world are moving toward flexible, hourly-based work. While this offers both businesses and employers greater freedom, the coordination of shifts and schedules presents an increasingly complicated set of pain points for workers and businesses. Existing solutions are antiquated; paper timeclocks, whiteboards in the break room, and spreadsheets are woefully inadequate for an increasingly mobile workforce. Deputy brings an incredibly simple and effective technology solution to make work easier for both workers and their employers.”
In terms of pricing, Deputy has two core tiers — priced from $2 to $4 per user each month, depending on what services are needed. There is an additional enterprise plan available upon request that gives companies more customizations.
Deputy counts more than 200 employees in Australia, the U.S., and the U.K., and with its new investment it will set about growing its engineering team in Sydney.
