Payroll platform Skuad raises $15m to drive global expansion

Singapore-based employment and payroll platform Skuad has announced raising $15 million in a Series A funding round led by a Southeast Asian venture capital investor.

A US strategic investor specializing in staffing and two leading global payments platforms also participated in the funding round along with existing investors BEENEXT, Anthemis as well other prominent angel investors.

This funding follows on from the $4 million seed round in December 2020, taking the total capital raised to $19 million, according to the announcement.

The brainchild of Sundeep Sahi, Skuad was founded in 2020 with the singular aim of simplifying the process of finding and managing the right talent while removing the limitations of boundaries.

While the pandemic-induced lockdowns and the “work from home” situation enabled the rise of distributed working models and global teams, they also created a unique set of challenges for organizations that were used to a traditional “office” set-up.

Skuad enables companies to build global, distributed teams by hiring the best talent beyond borders (without setting up a legal entity). Its array of services include onboarding, payroll, benefits, taxes and local compliance (at a fraction of the usual cost and time).

“The way people work and companies hire has changed,” said Sundeep Sahi, Founder and CEO of Skuad. “Our mission is to elevate lives by democratizing opportunities and talent globally. We started Skuad because we realized that talent was everywhere but opportunities were not.”

In the last two years, Skuad has witnessed exceptional growth — with customers across 34 countries (>50% from North America and Europe), talent in 94 countries (>80% from emerging economies) and 3X growth in ARR since January 2022.

Further, given Skuad’s affordable pricing plans — starting at $199 per employee per month for payroll and $499 per employee per month for talent discovered through the integrated platform — their clients range from emerging and early-stage startups to larger businesses.

These companies have built their global teams on Skuad’s platform and are processing over $120 Mn in payroll and payments worldwide in over 50 currencies.

Skuad has also expanded its leadership team with experienced senior hires across all verticals (Product, Sales and Operations), resulting in brand visibility and big client wins in the US and EU in a short period of time.

To further its mission, Skuad is also finalizing its acquisition of Codejudge, a data-driven talent assessment platform that automates the tech interview process.