By Jaspreet Singh
(Reuters) -Deel on Monday appointed former Intuit executive Joe Kauffman as chief financial officer to support the payroll startup’s possible plans to go public as soon as next year.
Kauffman succeeds founding CFO Philippe Bouaziz, who will take on the newly created role of executive chairman and chief strategy officer, said the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup, which was valued at $17.3 billion in a fundraise last month.
The California-based company is strengthening its financial and governance structures with new executive hires, as it pursues further expansion after striking 13 deals in six years.
“We don’t have an exact timing in place now, but IPO is definitely the intent,” Kauffman told Reuters. “With two IPOs under my belt, I’m looking for a hat-trick.”
Kauffman previously served as the head of corporate development at New Oriental Education & Technology Group and as CFO of TAL Education Group, which he helped take public.
Before joining Deel, he spent more than a decade at Intuit’s credit and financial management platform, Credit Karma, most recently as its CEO. He drove its international expansion, with revenue climbing to $2.3 billion in the fiscal year ended July 31 from over $100 million in the calendar year 2014.
The appointment comes amid Deel’s ongoing litigation with rival Rippling, which has sued Deel alleging racketeering, trade-secret misappropriation and unfair competition. Deel filed a defamation suit against Rippling in April, calling the claims a multi-year smear campaign.
Deel crossed $100 million monthly revenue for the first time in September and it generates roughly $15 million to $17 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
“We’re at the right trajectory where we should be top line driven … It’s not about constraints and costs reining in. It’s about how do we reinvest to really go back after the opportunity and drive top line even more,” Kauffman said.
Founded in 2019, Deel offers services to facilitate international hiring in compliance with local laws, contractor engagement and automated payroll processing for global businesses.
Deel has made major executive appoints recently including Harish Sharma as chief risk Officer, Anthony Luis Rodriguez as compliance chief and DeAnn Work as general counsel.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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