New York-based fintech Payoneer has acquired Skuad , a Singapore-based global HR and payroll startup, for $61 million in cash, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Payoneer said it could also pay up to another $10 million, contingent on if Skuad meets various performance goals within the first 18 months of the acquisition. Payoneer also committed to grant $10 million in restricted stock units which are subject to vesting contingent on continued employment of key personnel.
So all told, Payoneer could pay as much as around $81 million. That’s a fairly fast exit for Skuad founder Sundeep Sahi, who launched the company in 2019 with the aim of simplifying international hiring. The company’s focus has since been on helping small-to-medium-sized employers in over 160 countries (with over 100 currencies) deal with issues that make building distributed teams challenging, like variations in regulations from market to market, international payrolls and remote onboarding.
It had raised about $19 million in venture funding from investors such as Beenext, Anthemis, NMVM, Argor Capital and several angel investors prior to getting acquired. Payoneer is a provider of cross-border payment services to about 2 million businesses in over 190 countries and territories. Both Payoneer and Skuad are geared toward SMBs that operate internationally, particularly in emerging markets, while other larger payroll management startups such as Deel and Rippling “tend to focus on larger companies an.