• Compa

  Participated · Series B · Jan 2026

  Compa replaces traditional annual compensation surveys with software that ingests real-time data directly from customers’ human-capital, applicant-tracking, and stock systems to produce constantly updated benchmarks for salary, equity, incentives, and skills-based pay. The platform draws on a network of nine million verified market observations and is already trusted by Fortune 500 companies grappling with volatile labor markets. AI agents embedded in Compa analyze roles, levels, and geographies, surfacing risks and insights in seconds rather than weeks, so compensation teams can act quickly in competitive talent markets. Executives at firms such as OpenAI cite the product’s ability to deliver strategic clarity and defensible insights. As boards become more involved in pay strategy, Compa positions its software as core infrastructure for managing multi-billion-dollar payroll budgets. The company plans to use new capital to scale its agentic AI capabilities and expand its global data network, accelerating adoption across large enterprises.

• Oyster

  Participated · Series C · Apr 2022

  Oyster is a B Corp-certified global employment platform that enables companies to hire, pay, and care for distributed teams. The platform provides reliable, compliant contracts, payroll, and local benefits and perks to support people-centric hiring anywhere in the world. Founded in January 2020 by Tony Jamous and Jack Mardack and based in San Francisco, CA, Oyster focuses on enabling employers to employ distributed teams. The company received a $5M investment from ServiceNow Ventures and intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts. This funding followed a recent Series D that valued Oyster at $1.2 billion and brings total capital raised to $291M. Oyster is a payroll and HR platform that specializes in global employment, enabling companies to employ and pay distributed workers by hiring on clients' behalf and remitting salaries. The 2019-founded U.S. startup focuses on paying remote workers in emerging markets, saying over 40% of people on its platform are in those markets and that it remitted “hundreds of millions” to workers in 2023. Oyster is B Corp-certified and in the last year launched products including Global Payroll, Visa Sponsorships, local compensation insights, and a no-code offering that embeds global hiring, payroll, and rewards into customers' HR products. Management says the company has grown more than 7x in two years and improved margins substantially. Clients and partners include TriNet BambooHR, Quora, Lokalise, and Printify. The new funding will be used to accelerate platform development and expand more generally. Founded in January 2020 by Tony Jamous and Jack Mardack, Oyster provides a platform to hire international employees compliantly, pay them instantly, and provide local benefits in 180+ countries. Customers already use the platform to pay more than $200 million to global talent each year. In 2021 the company grew revenue by over 20x and grew the number of team members employed on its platform by 17x. It has a team of 500 employees in over 60 countries. The company intends to use the funding to further develop its global employment platform and invest in the People Ops community. Oyster provides an HR platform for globally distributed companies designed to make hiring talented people around the world compliant, human, and delightful. The platform aims to enable growing organizations to give international team members a better experience without the usual headaches or expense. Oyster announced new investments from PayPal Ventures and HR Tech Investments, an affiliate of Indeed. The company communicated the funding news from San Francisco, CA. The announcement was published by Massinvestor, Inc. No financial terms, instruments, or operating metrics were disclosed in the article. Oyster provides a platform to help organizations hire and manage distributed workforces, offering hiring, onboarding, payroll, benefits, and salary-management services for contractors and full-time employees outside a company’s home country. The company reports exponential growth and now works with 80 large businesses to fill knowledge-worker roles. Pricing mentioned in the article ranges from $29 per person per month for contractors to $399 for full employees, with additional packages for larger deployments. Oyster holds B-Corp certification and emphasizes a mission to expand access to global job opportunities, including in emerging economies. The company was co-founded by Tony Jamous and Jack Mardack; Jamous is described as London-based. Oyster competes in a crowded market alongside companies like Deel, Papaya Global, Remote, and Turing.

• Turing

  Participated · Series D · Dec 2021

  Turing operates an AI-powered Talent Cloud that sources, evaluates, hires, onboards and manages remote engineers across hiring, HR and compliance. The platform covers roughly 100 technologies and 15 job titles and serves customers from tech and non-tech sectors, including Johnson & Johnson, Coinbase, Rivian, Dell, Disney, Plume and VillageMD. In the past year its candidate pool grew ninefold to about 1 million engineers and developers from 140 countries (up from 180,000 reported the prior year). Turing focuses on full-stack, front-end, back-end and site reliability engineers and plans to expand into adjacent areas like project management and an offering to engage entire teams. The company emphasizes long-term career planning and end-to-end management of distributed engineering talent. Turing operates a talent marketplace and “talent cloud” that sources, rigorously vets (including practical coding assessments) and matches remote software developers with employer projects. The platform emphasizes data‑driven vetting and matching, including machine learning models that predict collaboration success and support team-level placements. It provides a secure sandboxed VM environment for contractors to protect client IP and to manage work during engagements. The company reports rapid commercial traction: since general availability a year ago it has grown from $17,000 to $10 million in annualized revenue. Turing has built a large supply pool of roughly 150,000 developers across 140 countries and places engineers into roles at startups and other vendors. The founders say they plan to continue scaling matching accuracy and expanding the talent pool as distributed work accelerates demand for remote engineering talent.

• Branch

  Participated · Series B · Aug 2021

  Branch provides instant digital payouts, earned wage access, fee-free banking, paycard alternatives, expense management cards, business debit issuance and a cash-back rewards program aimed at hourly, contract and gig workers. The company acquires users by partnering directly with employers and tech partners and runs programs with customers such as Uber Freight and Walmart’s Spark Delivery. With Uber Freight, Branch can pay drivers roughly two hours after proof of delivery versus the industry norm of 30–60 days. Branch says it has seen over 2,000% growth in the last three years and 700% year-over-year platform growth in 2021, though it declined to reveal hard revenue figures. The firm is expanding its product set (expense controls, custom rewards, wallet features) and plans to deepen penetration in trucking, logistics, last-mile delivery and restaurants while entering construction, hospitality and fitness. Its digital wallet is core to the product and reportedly becomes the primary account for about one in four users, enabling plans to layer on additional financial services to help workers manage cash flow. Branch provides enterprises a faster, cost-effective way to pay employees and independent contractors and offers tools such as digital payouts of tips, wages, and off-cycle payments, earned wage access, fee-free banking, and a paycard alternative. The company recently expanded the platform to support contractor payments and reporting, creating a more streamlined, uniform payments experience for 1099 workers. Branch partners with employers, gig platforms, staffing companies, and other businesses; customers named in the announcement include Kelly, Tagger, Delivery Drivers, Inc., and Rippling. The platform also offers workers a zero-fee bank account, free instant access to earned wages, and personal finance tools to manage cash flow between paychecks. Branch grew over 300% year over year and will use the new funding to deliver faster payments and inclusive financial services to more sectors and workforces. Founded in 2015, Branch aims to expand instant payments and workplace-driven financial products to additional employers and contractor platforms. Branch Messenger is a Minneapolis-based company that offers an app enabling hourly and gig workers to get paid and manage schedules. The company recently filed that it raised $19.47 million in venture capital, though Branch declined to comment on the raise or its intended use. The cash was contributed by seven investors, with Matchstick Ventures' general partner Ryan Broshar saying his firm invested over $1.8 million as a follow-on with existing backers. Named the Business Journal's most promising startup of 2017, Branch previously raised $6.8 million in 2017 to support hiring. The CEO, Atif Siddiqi, was honored by Ernst & Young as an Entrepreneur of the Year last year. Other identified investors in the new round include March Capital Partners, CrossCut Ventures and Techstars Ventures. Branch Messenger provides a mobile-first employee self-service platform (iOS and Android) that lets hourly shift workers manage schedules, swap and pick up shifts, and access workplace-specific messaging channels. The app is free for employees and is being tested at more than 100 Target stores, distribution centers, and call centers. Tens of thousands of hourly shift workers use Branch daily, and users posted more than 2.5 million hours in available shifts on the platform over the last 12 months. Hundreds of enterprises, including Target, McDonald’s, and Walgreens, use Branch to tap an elastic on-demand workforce and extend existing workforce-management systems without switching costs. The company says its technology reduces absenteeism, payroll costs, and management time and can be deployed across an organization in days. Branch was created at Idealab and is a Target + Techstars portfolio company headquartered in Minneapolis with an office in Los Angeles.

No current team members are available.