Karen Serfaty and Gianina Rossi, each engineers from Argentina, labored for U.S.-based corporations over the previous 10 years, and the identical difficulty saved arising: how one can handle taxes whereas being a contractor abroad.
Becoming a member of with San Francisco-based Josefina Van Thienen, who had labored at Microsoft constructing strategic partnerships with tech corporations focusing in AI, they took a deeper take a look at the issue and located taxes weren’t the one drawback when corporations need to rent globally.
“When you’re working from Europe, Asia or Latin America, you are usually getting paid in U.S. dollars, not your local currency,” Serfaty, CEO, advised TechCrunch. “You try to go to your HR manager for help in sending the money to a bank account, and the answer is usually ‘no.’”
So the trio began Atlas, a piece advantages device for international corporations to handle their contractor advantages from one place. By means of Atlas, corporations can supply advantages like tax administration, medical health insurance and social perks to their whole headcount regardless of the place they’re situated. There’s additionally a market of advantages that may be custom-made to the corporate or contractor.
They based the corporate from Argentina in 2021. Latin America generally has turn out to be a hotbed of world distant expertise, Serfaty mentioned. The worker advantages market itself has skilled numerous change and progress, particularly through the international pandemic when there was a surge in distant hiring.
Clients took observe. Atlas is working with corporations, together with Mercury, Firstbase, Deel and Payoneer.
“The goal was to get three customers in a month or drop the project, and we secured five,” Serfaty mentioned. “Those clients’ accounts grew 5x in a year with us.”
Since launching the platform in March 2023, the corporate has designed proprietary options, included a whole lot of advantages and expanded their presence to cowl 26 nations within the Americas and Europe. Throughout that point, the corporate grew its income 2x and is near an annual recurring income of $1 million.
Buyers seen, too. Atlas is the newest firm to boost some seed extension funding to the tune of $2.75 million. Hello Ventures (former ALLVP) led the spherical and was joined by Oskar Hjertonsson, founding father of Cornershop. In complete, the corporate raised near $5 million with different backers, together with Jason Calacanis and Pioneer, investing within the seed spherical.
“We are seeing a lot of traction from customers, including bigger customers, with no churn, so we’re seeing a lot of stickiness,” Serfaty mentioned. “The goal is to now grow our U.S.-based companies with global reach.”