We’re thrilled about our recent investment in Zenefits – the leading cloud HR automation platform. The SaaS-based solution connects payroll, benefits and other HR systems to one common employee record reducing HR overhead dramatically and improving the employee HR experience. The company recently celebrated its 2-year anniversary and already has over 10,000 customers, around 1,000 employees and substantial recurring revenues. It’s very rare to come across a company with such incredible traction in such a short time since its conception.

Beyond the incredible growth, we made this investment for many reasons:

Market: Due to the universal necessity of HR for every employee in the country, Zenefits is operating in a huge market that we believe is over $30B. There are 6 million SMB employer firms in the US, most of whom could be leveraging a platform like Zenefits to streamline their HR processes.

Innovative Business Model: Zenefits provides quality HR software for free and makes money by acting as their customer’s insurance broker. During our diligence, it was fascinating to hear just how valuable the HR software was to customers.  As a result, they figured out how to engage with those who are traditionally slower at technology adoption or have traditionally had a limited technology budget.  As the company continues to expand its product portfolio, they will become even more valuable for customers.

Team: Not only has the team proven that they can execute and recruit exceptional talent, but they also have a vision for the company that we believe will fundamentally change the way SMBs adopt software.

As with all of our investments at Comcast Ventures, we don’t intend to simply be passengers on this journey. Our affiliation with Comcast/NBCUniversal affords us many unique opportunities to help our portfolio companies so we take an active role fostering partnerships.

It is for these reasons that CEO Parker Conrad chose Comcast Ventures and said, "We are delighted to be working with Comcast Ventures and thrilled that they share our vision of making it effortless for small- and medium-sized businesses to manage their business and employees."

We’re excited to be part of the Zenefits team and look forward to working with the company.