Deel, Inc.

Global PayrollFounded 2019- HQ today: San Francisco, California, United States

Founders

Who Founded Deel?

Alex Bouaziz, Shuo Wang · Founded 2019 · HQ today: San Francisco, California, United States

Who founded Deel?

Deel was founded by Alex Bouaziz, Shuo Wang in 2019. It is now led by Alex Bouaziz.

Founders: Alex Bouaziz, Shuo Wang
Founded: 2019
Headquarters: San Francisco, California, United States
Number of founders: 2
Current CEO: Alex Bouaziz (since 2019)

Where was Deel founded?: Deel was founded in San Francisco, California in 2019.
When was Deel founded?: Deel was founded in 2019.
Who started Deel?: Deel was founded by Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang.
How old is Deel?: Deel is 7 years old as of 2026.

Founding Story

Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang met at MIT. While working on earlier ventures, they ran into the cost and complexity of paying people in other countries and concluded the problem was compliance, not payments. They founded Deel in 2019, joined Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch, and started with contractor payments and compliant contracts before building their own Employer of Record entities. When the pandemic pushed companies to hire remotely in 2020, that groundwork put Deel in front of a surge of demand.

Alex Bouaziz

Background

French-born entrepreneur who met co-founder Shuo Wang at MIT and worked on earlier startups before Deel.

Role at Deel, Inc.

Alex Bouaziz is Deel's co-founder and CEO. He started Deel in 2019 with Shuo Wang after experiencing first-hand how hard it was to hire and pay people across borders, took it through Y Combinator, and has led it from contractor payments to a full global HR and payroll platform with more than $1.5 billion in ARR. He has driven an acquisitive strategy of about 15 deals and is a named defendant, alongside Deel, in Rippling's 2025 corporate-espionage lawsuit, which he and the company dispute. Alex Bouaziz was born in 1993.

Shuo Wang

Background

Engineer by training who studied at MIT, where she met Alex Bouaziz.

Role at Deel, Inc.

Shuo Wang is Deel's co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer. She leads Deel's go-to-market organization and has overseen its sales growth from early contractor-payment customers to more than 40,000 businesses worldwide. Shuo Wang was born in 1989.

Deel, Inc.: CEO & Leadership History

Full timeline →

Joe Kauffman

Chief Financial Officer

2025 – Present

As CFO, he manages the massive cross-border payment flows and foreign exchange risk inherent in processing billions of dollars in global contractor payroll.

Alex Bouaziz

Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer

2019 – Present

As co-founder and CEO, he capitalized heavily on the pandemic-driven remote work boom, driving the company to $500 million in ARR faster than almost any SaaS startup in history.

Shuo Wang

Co-Founder & Chief Revenue Officer

2019 – Present

As co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer, she oversees the aggressive global sales operations that allowed Deel to consistently double its revenue year-over-year.

Philippe Bouaziz

Executive Chairman & Chief Strategy Officer

2019 – Present

As CFO during Deel's hyper-growth phase, he managed the massive venture capital influx, including the $425 million Series D that valued the company at $12 billion.

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Who Founded Deel? FAQ

Who founded Deel?

Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang founded Deel in 2019. They met at MIT and went through Y Combinator's Winter 2019 batch.

Why did they start Deel?

The founders found it slow, costly, and legally risky to hire and pay people in other countries and set out to make cross-border hiring as simple as hiring locally.

Who were Deel's early investors?

Y Combinator backed Deel at launch; Andreessen Horowitz led its $14 million Series A in 2020 and Spark Capital led its $30 million Series B later that year.

Are Deel's founders still at the company?

Yes. Alex Bouaziz is CEO and Shuo Wang is Chief Revenue Officer as of 2026.

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