The latest news comes from Remote, it has closed its first acquisition with the purchase of Easop.
Here's the inside track on the deal, and what it means for HR customers.
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March was a busy month for HR tech deals – noteworthy examples include Cornerstone’s acquisition of Talespin, Workday buying HiredScore and Deel closing not one, but two, acquisitions.
April, the beginning of a new financial year, is looking to be no different – the month has kicked off with a bang with global employer of record (EOR) platform Remote buying Easop for an undisclosed sum.
Founded in 2022, Easop enables companies to unlock equity and employee stock ownership plans.
Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH, Job Van Der Voort, CEO and Co-Founder of Remote, explained the ‘why’ behind the Easop deal: “Top talent, particularly engineers, data scientists, and other highly competitive roles that companies often use Remote for, increasingly expect stock options as part of their compensation packages.
“Remote understands this as a fast-growing global startup ourselves.
“That’s why we’ve made a significant effort to build a team with a ton of in-house expertise to support equity incentives in all countries in which we operate. Yet even with this expertise it remains a highly manual process involving numerous teams.”
For Van Der Voort, “That’s why Remote has acquired Easop; so we can further streamline and automate compliance to grant equity compensation to global teams, thereby enhancing our global employment solutions, to meet the increased demand for equity incentive support from our global customers.”
Writing in a blogpost about the deal, Easop’s Co-Founder and CEO Valentin Haarscher added that the two companies had worked very closely together as partners, and the acquisition was a result of mission alignment.
For Easop, by partnering with Remote and its customer base, including the likes of GitLab, Hello Fresh, Aston Martin and Burger King, it could ‘rocket fuel’ the Easop’s mission.
Haarscher noted: “We’re excited to bring our expertise to Remote and amplify the impact of our solutions, helping more companies navigate the complexities of global equity compensation.
“The Easop team is looking forward to playing a pivotal role in Remote’s journey to make global employment accessible to all.”
To date, Easop has raised $3.5 million, with investment from the likes of Boldstart Ventures, Partech Ventures and SemperVirens VC.
Talking about the deal, Boldstart Partner Shomik Ghosh noted: “This is a fantastic early outcome. Not only is Easop seeing an early exit, but they’re joining forces with the best EOR on the market. Very proud to have been part of their journey.”
A bright future for Remote and Easop
Remote and Easop are clearly both excited about the potential from this deal – but UNLEASH was keen to find out the impact of the acquisition on Easop and Remote’s HR customers.
Van Der Voort shares that the Easop “team brings invaluable, specialized compliance expertise and alignment with our vision to simplify global employment and connect the world’s best employers with the world’s most talented people”.
Easop’s tools are already integrated into the Remote platform. This means that “customers will have access to enhanced global equity management capabilities, backed by our team’s extensive legal, HR, and payroll expertise”, notes Van Der Voort.
“This will allow our customers to simply and compliantly offer stock options to team members in any location, in a more streamlined way than ever before, along with other tools for creating competitive compensation packages for their international workforces”.
Remote and Van Der Voort see real potential to give “ambitious global companies a significant advantage in attracting and retaining the most talented people around the world”.
Easop is actually Remote’s first acquisition – the EOR and HR tech unicorn has been around since 2019, has closed four investment rounds (the latest being $300 million in 2022).
But, Van Der Voort, is very clear it won’t be the last.
For Remote, 2024 is “all about taking big swings to realize our vision of making global employment effortless, equitable, and compliant for everyone, everywhere”.
Stay tuned.
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