New York-based fintech company Payoneer has acquired Singapore-based global HR and payroll startup Skuad for $61 million in cash, the company told TechCrunch exclusively.
Payoneer said it may pay up to an additional $10 million if Squad achieves various performance milestones within 18 months of the acquisition. Payoneer has also committed to grant $10 million in restricted stock units that vest contingent on continued employment of key personnel. Payoneer could therefore pay a total of approximately $81 million.
It's a fairly quick exit for Skuad founder Sandeep Sahi, who started the company in 2019 with the goal of simplifying international hiring. The company has since focused on helping small and mid-sized employers in 160+ countries (100+ currencies) navigate the issues that make building distributed teams difficult, including market-by-market regulatory differences, international payroll, and remote onboarding.
Prior to the acquisition, the company had raised approximately $19 million in venture funding from investors including Beenext, Anthemis, NMVM and Argor Capital, as well as several angel investors.
Payoneer is a company that provides cross-border payment services to approximately 2 million businesses in more than 190 countries and regions.
Both Payoneer and Skuad are aimed at small businesses that operate internationally, especially in emerging markets, while other larger payroll startups such as Deel and Rippling “tend to focus on larger businesses and enterprises,” Payoneer CEO John Kaplan said.
Payoneer has more than 2,150 employees. Kaplan said Squad has about 200 employees, all of whom will join Payoneer as part of the acquisition. He declined to disclose Squad's financials, saying only that it has a “high-growth recurring revenue model.” Meanwhile, Payoneer also announced Wednesday that second-quarter revenue grew 16% year over year to $240 million, and adjusted EBITDA reached a record high of $73 million.
“One of the biggest opportunities Payoneer is pursuing is to capture a share of the $6 trillion B2B market, where small and medium-sized businesses around the world are seizing global opportunities by exporting goods and services across borders — for example, BPOs in the Philippines, marketing agencies in the UAE and beauty product exporters in South Korea,” Caplan told TechCrunch. BPO stands for business process outsourcing, and the Philippines is known for its call centers and other IT support services.
“Remote work is here to stay in a post-pandemic world, as companies are under pressure to reduce labor costs and we're seeing a shift away from the individual freelancer model to businesses looking for more scalable solutions,” Kaplan said.
Payoneer plans to integrate Skuad's payroll and contract management services into its own.
Corporate acquisitions are on the rise as the fintech market takes a hit from a venture capital slowdown: As of mid-April, 159 deals had been announced or completed in 2024, on pace with last year, according to Capstone Partners.
Payoneer, which went public in 2021 via a SPAC merger backed by fintech entrepreneur Betsy Cohen (founder of The Bancorp), emerged as one of the buyers. In August 2023, Payoneer announced it had acquired AI data startup Spot and also acquired a payments company licensed to operate in China, with the deal expected to close later this year. Also in 2019, Payoneer acquired German payments startup Optile.
Want more fintech news delivered to your email? Sign up for TechCrunch Fintech here.
Want to share a tip? Email me at maryann@techcrunch.com or message me on Signal at 408.204.3036. You can also message the entire TechCrunch staff at tips@techcrunch.com. If you'd like to communicate more securely, click here to contact us, which includes links to SecureDrop (instructions here) and other encrypted messaging apps.