Startup News: Rippling raises $500M, helps its customers with payroll operations
With the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on March 10, one private company, payment and HR software provider Rippling, ended up helping many Bay Area startups that were depositors at the failed bank. And it did so with help from one of its investment backers.
After learning that some of its clients' payroll funds were stuck at the bank, Rippling Chief Executive Parker Conrad decided to use $130 million from the San Francisco-based company's own balance sheet to make sure payrolls were processed on time, according to reporting by Reuters.
A week after Silicon Valley Bank was dissolved and taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., San Francisco-based Rippling announced it has raised $500 million in a Series E funding round initially intended to help customers make payroll in the immediate aftermath of SVB’s collapse. The round, led by technology investor Greenoaks Capital, gave Rippling the same valuation of $11.25 billion it had clinched after its previous capital raise in May 2022, the company said.
“Unclear if customers' funds would be recovered by Monday, Conrad started to seek more capital from investors, whose funds were also partly stuck with SVB,” Reuters reported.
With nearly $1 billion on the company’s balance sheet, Conrad told Reuters that he hopes this funding is Rippling’s last private raise. "This capital is going to further insulate us from whatever might happen in macro-economy over the next year," said Conrad.
Fanatics Now Uniform Supplier for the NHL
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, Fanatics, the growing privately-held online sports merchandiser, has plans to replace German apparel brand Adidas as the official uniform supplier for the National Hockey League starting with the 2024-2025 season.
According to CNBC, the deal marks the first time that Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fanatics branding will appear on official player uniforms in professional sports. “This is a seminal moment in the history of Fanatics, and a testament to the hands-on, collaborative relationship with the NHL that we’ve built over the years,” Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin said in a statement. Fanatics, based in Jacksonville, Fla. and last valued at $31 billion in December 2022, already runs the NHL’s e-commerce site with more than 90 million customers worldwide.
