Warp, an employee management startup, has raised $60 million in new funding to expand a platform that uses artificial intelligence to run payroll and other back-office work with minimal staff involvement.
The New York-based company pitches itself as an artificial intelligence-native alternative to legacy human capital management software, a category long dominated by Workday Inc. It argues that capabilities once reserved for large enterprises with dedicated administrators can now run inside software that does the underlying work itself.
Warp launched in 2023 and runs payroll, HR, compliance, benefits and information technology for companies ranging from a handful of staff up to 5,000.
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Payroll runs in seconds across all 50 states.
Its software agents file returns and clear the tax notices that follow without a person in the loop.
How Warp’s system handles the grunt work
Hire a worker — the system instantly sets up accounts and devices without any staff member assigned to the task, and access is pulled when the worker leaves.
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That work is a familiar headache for small companies.
A startup hiring in a new state has to register with the tax authorities and stay on top of the filings — and the penalties for getting it wrong are real.
Its pitch is that the technology can now handle most of it, putting compliance help once limited to big employers within reach of a five-person team.
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Battery Ventures led the Series B round. Peak XV, Sound Ventures, Y Combinator and HOF Capital also took part, along with a list of founders and operators that included Shopify Inc. Chief Executive Tobias Lütke, former Stripe Inc. operating chief Claire Hughes Johnson, Dropbox Inc. co-founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, former Coinbase Global Inc. technology chief Balaji Srinivasan, Eventbrite Inc. co-founder Kevin Hartz, Cruise LLC founder Kyle Vogt and Replit Inc. founder Amjad Masad.
The financing takes its total funding to $85 million.
Sound Ventures led its earlier $25 million round.
