Global payroll and compliance platform founded in 2019 by Alex Bouaziz and Shuo Wang, famous in SaaS circles for one of the fastest ARR ramps in history — zero to $100M in under two years. Deel's rise is the canonical recent case study in distribution-as-moat: the product was adequate, but the go-to-market machine was relentless. Direct competitor in spirit to Rippling and a frequent reference for founders thinking about sales velocity and compound growth.