Employers of hourly workers often struggle to figure out how much workers' compensation insurance they should be carrying.
For small businesses, particularly those in the food and hospitality sectors, choosing the right policy for their workforces isn't simple, Tom Sagi, co-founder and CEO of Hourly Inc., said in a blog post earlier this week. Workers' compensation insurance premiums are based on businesses' yearly payroll estimates, which can be difficult to calculate accurately, Sagi said. Companies often end up overpaying or underpaying by tens of thousands of dollars, he said.
Sagi, together with Amir Faintuch and Shay Litvak, founded their Palo Alto-based startup to make the process easier — and save companies money. It offers a payroll service that also keeps track of employee hours to calculate workers' compensation premiums.
"By directly linking payroll and workers' comp, premiums are based on your actual payroll — not a guess," Sagi said in his post.
To date, the company, which calls itself Hourly or Hourly.io, has been operating in California. But after announcing earlier this week it's raised a $27 million Series A round, it now plans to expand to one-third of the country by the end of next year. It also plans to add new features to its service that would help customers find affordable coverage, file insurance claims and establish workplace safety programs, Sagi said in his post.
Read on for more about Hourly's new deal and other Series A funding news from this past week:
Hourly Inc. (dba Hourly.io), Palo Alto, $27 million: Glilot Capital Partners led the round for this developer of a payroll app for employers of hourly workers that helps them calculate their workers' compensation insurance. Vintage Investment Partners and J-Ventures also invested.
Railway Corp., San Francisco, $20 million: Redpoint Ventures led the round for this developer of app development software. Vercel Inc. CEO Guillermo Rauch and GitHub Inc. founder Tom Preston-Werner also participated.
Felt Maps Inc., Oakland, $15 million: Footwork led the round for this provider of a service for creating customized digital maps. Bain Capital Ventures, Moxxie Ventures and Designer Fund also invested.
SamaCare Inc., San Francisco, $12 million: Vive Collective led the round for this provider of a service that helps health care providers obtain insurance company approvals for prescriptions for their patients. NextView Ventures, South Park Commons and Susa Capital also invested.
Novoloop Inc., Menlo Park, $10 million: Hanwha Solutions and Mistletoe led the round for this developer of a process for recycling plastic waste.
Planet FWD Inc., San Francisco, $10 million: Acre Venture Partners and Congruent Ventures led the round for this provider of a service that helps companies calculate the amount of carbon they and their products generate and figure out how to reduce their emissions. BBG Ventures, Precursor, Concrete Rose, January Ventures, Elemental Excelerator, Cleo Capital and Rethink Food also invested.
Juno Co. (dba Junoco), San Francisco, $6.3 million: Vision Plus Capital led the round for this developer of skincare and beauty products. Frees Fund also invested.
