Oyster Raises $150M in Series C Funding at a $1 Billion-Plus Valuation

The funding makes mission-driven Oyster the world's fastest-growing global employment platform and a unicorn less than two years after launch

LONDON and SAN FRANCISCO , April 20, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Oyster®, the company that delivers exceptional team member experiences for global teams with its fast, compliant and robust global employment platform, today announced that it has raised $150 million in Series C funding at a $1 billion-plus valuation. Georgian, who led the round, was joined by Salesforce Ventures, LinkedIn, the Base10 Partners Advancement Initiative, Okta, and Endeavor Catalyst, along with existing investors Stripes, Emergence Capital, PayPal Ventures, Slack Fund, Avid Ventures, PeopleTech Partners, and HR Tech Investments, an affiliate of Indeed.

The funding establishes Oyster as a unicorn less than two years after the company's launch and as one of the few B Corporations^[1] to achieve the milestone. The investment also caps a year of incredible growth for the company. In 2021, Oyster grew revenue by over 20x and the number of team members employed on its platform by 17x. As a result of its mission-driven, fully distributed culture, Oyster attracted over 20,000 job applications in the first quarter of 2022.

Oyster's continued momentum speaks to the overall power of the distributed work movement, with the best companies in the world increasingly choosing to hire talent wherever it is found, while empowering their teams to work from anywhere. Oyster customers, who can recruit job seekers in over 180 countries, already use the platform to pay more than $200 million to global talent each year, with 25% of that talent living in emerging economies.

"Distributed work is better for business, better for people, and better for the planet," said Oyster Co-founder & CEO Tony Jamous. "Our mission, to create a more equal world by helping companies everywhere hire people anywhere, fuels everything that we do. It's thanks to the strength and impact of that mission that we have been able to grow our team and business in such an unprecedented way. We're thrilled to work with Georgian and our investor partners on this step of the journey."

In the last two years, Oyster has also created a vibrant team of 500 employees. With employees in over 60 countries, a diverse leadership team, and an employee base that is over 60% female, the company enjoys one the highest employee engagement scores in its class. Oyster is proof that companies don't need an office to create a highly engaged culture; they just need a compelling mission, demonstrated impact, and clear core values.

"We are excited to support Oyster on their mission to provide opportunities that cross geographic barriers," said Claudine Emeott, Partner at Salesforce Ventures Impact Fund. "They're the kind of company that fits well within our investment mandate for both high growth and high impact. We see Oyster's mission to incorporate impact as part of their values to be a key differentiator that will only fuel their continued growth."

"The Oyster team is one of the most mission-aligned companies we've ever seen," said Margaret Wu, Lead Investor at Georgian. "They're the kind of company we deeply admire—not just a unicorn, but an 'impact-unicorn,' a business that creates enormous value as the direct result of its social impact mission. We're eager to support them as they lead the world into a new era of work."

Oyster's Series C follows a pair of funding rounds in 2021, including a Series A in February and a Series B in June. The company has raised a total of $227 million to date. Oyster plans to use the Series C funding to further develop its global employment platform and invest in the People Ops community. In addition, the company will continue its work toward creating a gold standard distributed culture and delivering on its high-impact social mission.

About Oyster
Oyster is a global employment platform that empowers companies to hire, pay, and care for their global teams. It enables growing companies to give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches or expense. Oyster empowers hiring anywhere in the world with reliable, compliant contracts, payroll and great local benefits and perks. Founded in January 2020 by Tony Jamous and Jack Mardack, Oyster is itself a fully distributed company with a diverse, global team. For more information visit https://oysterhr.com.

About Georgian
Georgian is a fintech company investing in high growth software companies that harness the power of data in a trustworthy way. At Georgian, we're building a platform to provide a better experience of growth capital to software company CEOs and their teams. Georgian's platform is designed to identify and accelerate the best growth-stage software companies, taking an intelligent, data-first approach to solving the key challenges CEOs face as they grow their businesses. Based in Toronto, Georgian's team brings together software entrepreneurs, machine learning experts, experienced operators and investment professionals. For more information, visit https://georgian.io/.

Contact:
Gabriel Kessler 
gabriel.kesseler@oysterhr.com

^[1] Certification pending

SOURCE Oyster