When Alex Bouaziz founded his first company in Israel a few years ago, he soon encountered financial hurdles: he realized that he could not afford to recruit employees here.

“Israel is crazy.

It's a tiny country with many start-up companies, the market for software developers is competitive.” So he hired staff elsewhere, for example in Ukraine and Serbia, but also in his native France, where salaries in the industry according to him, are still 30 percent or more lower than in Israel.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

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This experience became the inspiration for his current company Deel, which he co-founded in 2019 and leads as CEO.

His goal is to make national borders irrelevant when it comes to hiring and enable companies to recruit employees from anywhere in the world, even where they don't have their own offices.

The start-up has grown rapidly since it was founded and now has around 1700 employees.

Bouaziz now puts annualized sales at more than $100 million, and he's aiming to hit $1 billion in three to four years.

In the most recent round of funding around a year ago, Deel was valued at $5.5 billion, with investors including well-known venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz.

In May, the news portal Axios reported that Deel had raised money again and even achieved a valuation of $12 billion.

The company has never confirmed this, and Bouaziz declined to comment.

Deel helps with the paperwork

Deel supports its clients in completing formalities when they want to recruit internationally.

For example, if an American company wants to hire employees in Germany or Kenya, but does not have a branch there itself.

If someone is to be employed on a freelance basis, Deel ensures, among other things, that this is done in accordance with local laws.

In the case of a permanent position, Deel himself concludes the employment contract on behalf of the customer – and terminates it again if the employment relationship is to be terminated again.

Bouaziz says Deel can hire people for its customers in a day in most countries.

This is done in a largely automated process using software.

Deel has offices in more than 100 countries and employs its own lawyers and HR experts in many of them.

According to Bouaziz, customers include many small and medium-sized companies, but even larger corporations often do not have subsidiaries in every country in the world.

In addition, Deel offers services such as taking care of payroll, which are used by companies even if they themselves have branches in a certain country.

Deel, on the other hand, is not involved in the search for candidates, but only comes into play when someone is found.

"2023 will be a big year for us in Germany"

Deel promises its customers to be able to hire qualified staff in more regions, which increases choice and also brings the prospect of lower costs.

According to Bouaziz, this could lead to a correction in areas where particularly high salaries are paid today.

For example in California's Silicon Valley, where salaries are slightly higher than in Israel.

In job interviews with Deel, software developers asked for $500,000 a year.

Paying that much money can't be profitable for any business unless it's someone with unique skills.

"Corporations like Google, Facebook and Apple are offering inflated salaries because there aren't enough software developers, and small startups are struggling to compete."

It fits Deel's concept that the company itself is homeless, it had no official headquarters from the start and therefore even before the pandemic.

"I've never worked in an office myself, I don't know any different," says the 29-year-old Bouaziz.

Everyone can work wherever they want, the company pays for memberships with the office broker WeWork.

Bouaziz estimates that the majority of his employees - around a fifth - are in the US, but not only in the most expensive areas like Silicon Valley or New York.

In Germany, Bouaziz sees himself expanding.

Here, Deel bought the Berlin company Zeitgold, which specializes in accounting software, last year.

Bouaziz says he is currently looking for a country manager in Germany,

and local companies are showing more and more interest in Deel's services.

"2023 will be a big year for us in Germany."