Rippling (People Center, Inc.)
Company History
Rippling History: Founding, Growth & Key Milestones
Founded 2016 in San Francisco, California, United States
When was Rippling founded?
Rippling was founded in 2016 in San Francisco, California, United States by Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar, making it 10 years old.
- Founded
- 2016
- Founding place
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Founders
- Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar
- Headquarters today
- San Francisco, California, United States
- Milestones documented
- 8 (2016–2026)
- Current CEO
- Parker Conrad
- Acquisitions
- 3
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Rippling founded |
| 2019 | $45M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins |
| 2020 | $145M Series B at $1.35B valuation |
| 2022 | Valuation reaches $11.25B |
| 2023 | $500M Series E during SVB failure |
| 2024 | $200M Series F at $16.8B |
| 2025 | Deel lawsuit and $16.8B Series G |
| 2026 | Rippling AI launch; ~$1B ARR |
- Where was Rippling founded?
- Rippling was founded in San Francisco, California, United States in 2016.
- Who founded Rippling?
- Rippling was founded by Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar.
- When did Rippling start?
- Rippling was founded in 2016.
- How old is Rippling?
- Rippling is 10 years old as of 2026.
Founding Story
Parker Conrad co-founded Zenefits in 2013 and resigned as its CEO in February 2016 amid a scandal over insurance licensing compliance. Later that year he started Rippling with Prasanna Sankar, who became its CTO. Conrad has said that one weakness at Zenefits was how much work happened manually behind the scenes, so Rippling put more emphasis on operational infrastructure and compliance. It also aimed to manage everything tied to an employee, beyond HR and benefits.
Founders
Parker Conrad
Parker Conrad co-founded Rippling in 2016 and has been its CEO since. He has grown it into a company with roughly $1 billion in annual recurring revenue and a $16.8 billion valuation (May 2025). Conrad promotes the 'compound startup' approach, which means building many integrated products at once on shared infrastructure. He has led Rippling through the 2023 Silicon Valley Bank failure, the 2026 launch of Rippling AI and the 2025 legal fight with Deel. Parker Conrad was born in 1980.
Prasanna Sankar
Prasanna Sankar co-founded Rippling in 2016 and served as its CTO, building early versions of the platform. He left the company in 2020, and in 2025 he told Forbes he had sold his shares over the years. He later started other ventures, including the AI software engineering startup Vorflux. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Key Milestones
Rippling founded
Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar started the company in San Francisco.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$45M Series A led by Kleiner Perkins
Funded expansion of payroll and IT products.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$145M Series B at $1.35B valuation
Founders Fund led the round. CTO Prasanna Sankar left the company the same year.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgValuation reaches $11.25B
Raised $250 million Series D; expanded into finance products.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$500M Series E during SVB failure
Raised emergency capital to keep client payrolls running after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed.
Source: en.wikipedia.org$200M Series F at $16.8B
Coatue led, alongside a tender offer of up to $590 million.
Source: techcrunch.comDeel lawsuit and $16.8B Series G
Sued Deel in March, then raised $450 million at a $16.8 billion valuation in May.
Source: techcrunch.comRippling AI launch; ~$1B ARR
Conrad reported revenue growing 78% year over year; CNBC Disruptor 50 rank No. 11.
Source: cnbc.comMajor Acquisitions
Fuzzbuzz
2024Application security, automated fuzz testing, and bug identification tooling.
RunX
2022Enhance core infrastructure automation and developer deployment experience.
Flow
2021Acquired visual workflow automation and cross-app integration startup Flow.
Keep researching Rippling
Rippling Company History FAQ
When and where was Rippling founded?
Rippling (legally People Center, Inc.) was founded in 2016 in San Francisco, California, by Parker Conrad and Prasanna Sankar.
What is the backstory behind Parker Conrad founding Rippling?
Parker Conrad had previously co-founded and served as CEO of health insurance and HR software startup Zenefits. Following his highly publicized resignation in February 2016 amidst regulatory licensing controversies, Conrad teamed up with former Zenefits Director of Engineering Prasanna Sankar to build Rippling as a technologically superior, compliant platform.
What was the foundational philosophy of Rippling?
Rippling was founded on the concept of the "compound startup"—the belief that rather than building a single-point SaaS solution (like pure payroll or device management), modern enterprises require an integrated suite of business applications built atop a single shared employee database (the Employee Graph).
When did Rippling participate in Y Combinator?
Rippling participated in Y Combinator's Winter 2017 (W17) batch, emerging as one of the most prominent B2B enterprise software companies in the accelerator's history.
How did Rippling's product offering expand over time?
Rippling launched with payroll and benefits administration, then expanded into IT Cloud (device management, SSO, app provisioning) in 2018-2019, followed by Finance Cloud (corporate cards, expense management, bill pay) in 2021-2022, and Global Workforce (Employer of Record - EOR) in 2022.
How did Rippling respond during the Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapse in March 2023?
When SVB collapsed on Friday, March 10, 2023, halting Rippling's client payroll rails with $545 million in transit, Parker Conrad and his team worked through the weekend, transferred operational rails to JPMorgan Chase, and secured a $500 million emergency Series E-1 equity round led by Greenoaks to ensure all client employees were paid without interruption.
What was Rippling's valuation trajectory across its funding rounds?
Rippling was valued at $270 million in 2019 (Series A), $1.35 billion in 2020 (Series B unicorn status), $6.5 billion in 2021 (Series C), $11.25 billion in 2022 (Series D), and reached a $13.5 billion valuation in May 2024 following a $200 million Series F financing round led by Coatue.
Who are Rippling's primary venture capital backers?
Rippling has raised over $1.4 billion from premier Silicon Valley venture firms including Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Greenoaks Capital, Bedrock Capital, Coatue Management, Initialized Capital, and Y Combinator.
When did Rippling launch its Global Workforce and EOR platform?
In late 2022, Rippling unveiled Rippling Global, enabling companies to hire, pay, and manage full-time employees and contractors in over 100 countries natively through a single system without third-party integrations.
What is Rippling Unity and when was it launched?
In 2022, Rippling formalized its platform core as "Rippling Unity," exposing customizable workflow automations, custom policy engines, and analytics across HR, IT, and Finance to enterprise IT administrators.
How has Rippling expanded geographically?
Headquartered in San Francisco, Rippling opened major regional headquarters in Dublin, Ireland (for European expansion), London, Sydney, and Bengaluru, India (for core software engineering and operations).
What milestones demonstrate Rippling's enterprise market growth?
Rippling scaled from serving small startups under 50 employees to managing enterprises with thousands of workers, surpassing $350 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with best-in-class net revenue retention (NRR) exceeding 130%.
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