Rippling, the startup aiming to build a platform to manage employee data, has closed a $145 million Series B round that lifted the company’s valuation to $1.35 billion, the firm announced on its blog.
The money, according to Chief Executive Parker Conrad, will be used to help continue in-house product development and bring in additional tools organically rather than through acquisitions. But also, the money will be good to have for a safeguard against the current global pandemic environment, the company said.
“We will double down on R&D but to be honest we’re trying not to change the formula too much,” Conrad said in an interview, according Yahoo. “We want to have that discipline. This fundraising was opportunistic amid the larger macroeconomic risk at the moment. I was working at startups in 2008-2009 and the funding markets are strong right now, all things considered, and so we wanted to make sure we had the stockpile we needed in case things went bad.”
The latest funding is noteworthy because the company’s aim is to help smaller organizations that typically have around 200 to 1,000 employees and are dealing with a cobble of various companies for different areas of service including employee onboarding, payroll, benefits, device management, app provisioning and permissions, among others.
Rippling wants to use just one platform for everything, the release says, with “the theory being that managing HR employee data is essentially part and parcel of good management of IT data permissions and device provision.”
Conrad said his goal was to help manage any number of third-party apps, computers and other devices to help businesses reach their own goals.
The company has also launched new tools for tracking employees’ work on various products, and one for SMS communications for employees working remotely.
The pandemic has expedited a shift toward digital ways of running a business. PYMNTS reported earlier this year on the importance of having a strong digital backbone to keep work and payments flowing.
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