New Funding Pushes Distributed HR Platform Oyster To $1 Billion Valuation

HR platform Oyster has achieved unicorn status following a $150 million Series C funding round. 

The company, which focuses on servicing distributed companies, saw its valuation cross $1 billion after the funding round, which came months after a $50 million Series B that valued the firm at $475 million. 

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“We’ve had unprecedented growth over the last year,” said Tony Jamous, founder and CEO of Oyster, citing that the popularity of remote working has accelerated the company’s success. 

Around 15 years ago, Jamous launched Nexmo, an application programming interface for building communications, which merged with Vonage in 2016 and was acquired by Ericsson for $6.5 billion just last year. 

Once he left Nexmo, Jamous aspired to return to the startup world. During this process, he realized the difficulty of the hiring process, particularly for a globally distributed workforce.  

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“I wanted to make hiring somebody on the other side of the world as easy as possible as hiring locally with a few clicks,” said Jamous.   

Oyster aims to make hiring and onboarding practices seamless, giving companies the ability to hire from wherever they want in the world without roadblocks. The firm’s mission is to help boost job accessibility in emerging economies, which currently make up 25% of the firm’s profiles. 

In 2020, Oyster’s staff grew from just 17 employees to 500 across 70 countries, which has been driven by its commitment to a diverse, fully remote work model. 

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