Zenefits’ software helps small businesses manage all of their human resources functions in one place, such as health insurance, payroll, retirement funds and equity grants. The software is free. Zenefits takes a commission from vendors like insurance providers or brokerages. The company is on track to double its entire revenue in the last four months of this year; monthly revenue is slated to be 20 times higher than last year’s.
Insurance brokers, the middlemen of the $884 billion insurance industry, charge a hefty fee for connecting individuals and businesses with the insurance providers. Conrad believes that service is unnecessary in today’s world, so he built Zenefits, a software startup, to cut them out. It has quickly caught on. Eighteen months in, Zenefits has 2000 paying clients and 450 employees. The San Francisco-based company has signed a development deal with Arizona to add 1,300 jobs there in the next three years. A June funding round worth $66 million valued the young company at $500 million. That was just six months after its previous funding round, which investors called “the hottest deal in Silicon Valley.”
