Full-service payroll, benefits, and HR for modern companies
HQ: San Francisco, CA, United States | Founded: 2011 | Employees: ~2,400 (2024) | Stage: Late-Stage Private / Series E | Website: https://gusto.com
Gusto was founded in 2011 in San Francisco as ZenPayroll by Stanford friends Joshua Reeves (CEO), Edward Kim (CTO) and Tomer London (CPO), incubated at Y Combinator (W12). The team set out to rebuild payroll from first principles after experiencing the pain of filing taxes and paying contractors at prior startups. Rebranded from ZenPayroll to Gusto in September 2015 to reflect expansion beyond payroll into health benefits and HR, the company built a full-stack platform that automatically calculates, files, and pays federal, state, and local payroll taxes in all 50 states, administers health insurance, 401(k) via Guideline, workers' comp, and offers a modern employee self-service layer. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Denver and New York, Gusto employs ~2,400 people and has raised $746M-$1.1B from General Catalyst, CapitalG (Google Capital), Kleiner Perkins, Fidelity, T. Rowe Price, Dragoneer, Obvious Ventures, Emergence Capital, and YC.
Gusto monetizes on a per-employee-per-month SaaS model — $40 base plus $6 per employee — serving startups to 500-person companies that find ADP/Paychex overly complex. The company crossed $100M revenue in Dec 2018, $200M in Aug 2021, $290M in Jan 2022, $500M ARR in late 2022, and ~$500-600M revenue in 2023 with 300,000+ business customers. Its 2021 Series E at $9.5B (T. Rowe Price) followed by a Fidelity-led secondary at $10B marked the peak of the HR-tech funding cycle, with a $55M extension in May 2022 holding the $9.5B price. Key differentiators include Gusto Wallet (financial wellness), contractor/international payments via acquisitions (Ardius, Symmetry, Remote partnership), and an embedded payroll API, positioning Gusto as the SMB system-of-record against Rippling's IT/HR bundle, Deel's global EOR, and legacy incumbents.
Gusto dominates SMB payroll as the modern alternative to ADP and Paychex — founded as ZenPayroll in 2011 by Joshua Reeves, Edward Kim and Tomer London, the San Francisco company now powers payroll and HR for 300,000+ businesses and 14M+ workers. After a $175M Series E at $9.5B led by T. Rowe Price in Aug 2021 (with a $10B Fidelity secondary in Nov 2021 and $55M extension at $9.5B in May 2022), Gusto hit $500M ARR in late 2022 and ~$500-600M revenue in 2023. Backed by General Catalyst, CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins, Fidelity, Dragoneer, Obvious Ventures, Emergence Capital and Y Combinator with $746M-$1.1B raised, its moat is full-stack payroll + benefits + HR with automated tax filing in all 50 states versus Rippling and Deel's bundling, but remains exposed to SMB churn and legacy pricing pressure.
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