Remote raises $11 million

After Oyster announced a $4.2 million round, another payroll and benefits platform focused on global employment is announcing funding. Remote, the San Francisco, CA-based startup has raised $11 million in a round led by Two Sigma Ventures, with participation from Index Ventures, General Catalyst, Liquid2, INKEF Ventures, Remote First Capital, and Sid Sijbrandij (CEO of GitLab) and Jobert and Kirsten Abma (cofounder of HackerOne).

Founded in 2019 by Job van der Voort (former VP of Product at GitLab) and Marcelo Lebre (former VP of Engineering at Unbabel), Remote provides a compliant platform which handles payroll, benefits, compliance, and taxes all in one single solution across international markets. Remote is a fully distributed company with employees based in several different countries.

The road to creating Remote began when van der Voort made an offer to a product manager based in Germany, but the company had no way of hiring the person legally. It took the company a year to finally establish a legal entity, find local labor law and payroll experts, and ensure that it was complying with local regulations. This challenge presented itself time and time again as they scaled GitLab to now 67 different countries.

Remote allows companies to onboard global contractors and employees in minutes, and the startup takes care of payroll, tax, benefits and compliance thanks to a network of in-country legal partners and service providers who enable Remote and its customers to move fast while removing red tape and compliance risks.

“Nowadays, companies understand that it’s not about finding the best talent in San Francisco, New York, Austin or Atlanta anymore. It’s about hiring the best talent in the world, wherever they may have chosen to live.” – Job van der Voort, CEO of Remote.

Villi Iltechev, partner at Two Sigma Ventures, shares why he chose to invest: