Nov 17, 2020
$1 Billion Valuation for Rippling
Earlier this summer San Franciso-based firm Ripping passed the landmark valuation of $1 billion for the first time. Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar’s new company caught my eye at an early stage and I was delighted to hear of both the valuation and the $145 million Series B fundraising led by Founders Fund.
Co-founded in 2016, Rippling’s fundamental aim is to make human resources easier through software. Its August valuation of $1.35 billion has jumped five-fold from little over a year ago, resting at $295 million in April 2019. The co-founders have now expressed an intention to expand, but the valuation offers a vital safety net in the midst of a world pandemic.
Conrad’s previous venture Zenefits had peaked at a valuation of $4.5 billion before unravelling amid compliance problems. It too offered a cloud platform, offering small businesses easy methods to manage and track its employees’ needs. He sees it as inspiration and lessons for Rippling, which has a secure client base in its automated services. It automates payroll and manages apps, software tools and work grounds that new and old employees require. Revenue in 2019 reached circa $10 million and growth has continued through 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on small to medium-size businesses.
A particular benefit of Rippling is that is keeps all of its employees’ information updated as they get promoted, change groups or leave a company. As a result, it can save companies with small Human Resources teams endless hours and costs. Such a model makes it a long-term platform for companies to use; therein lies its main attraction of reducing the administrative workload for countless company executives.
