US-headquartered Oyster, a global employment solution to employ, pay, and care for distributed teams, has snapped $59 million in Series D funding. The round was led by Silver Lake Waterman, with participation from existing investors, including Emergence Capital, Stripes, Georgian, G2 Venture Partners, and Endeavor Catalyst. With this fundraising, the company is now valued at $1.2 billion and its total funding accounts for $286 million.
Funds utilisation
Founded in 2019, the investment will enable Oyster to accelerate its platform roadmap, scale its impact, improve its customers’ compliance posture, and enhance its customers’ ability to attract and retain top talent. “Global employment is incredibly complex, involving many moving parts. Oyster emerged as a best-of-breed solution in the category to solve these traditional challenges,” said Shawn O’Neill, Managing Partner of Silver Lake Waterman. “In just four years, Oyster built a platform of trusted tools and resources for bulletproof global compliance and in-depth local HR knowledge—a strategy that has made them one of the leaders in the market. The team at Oyster is well positioned to continue to deliver the specialised HR solution required for the current global employment experience and we look forward to all that’s ahead.”
Democratises access to global job opportunities
Founded by Tony Jamous and Jack Mardack, Oyster is a global employment platform that helps remove the barriers to remote work and distributed hiring. Touted to be one of the few B Corp-certified unicorn companies in the world, its mission is to create a more equal world by democratising access to global job opportunities, wherein everyone, everywhere, has the chance to prosper. It enables growing companies to give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches or expense. The company enables people-centric hiring anywhere in the world with reliable, compliant contracts, payroll, and great local benefits and perks.
Customers like Lokalise, Quora, and Printify choose Oyster to develop sustainable cross-border talent strategies, create competitive offers that attract and retain talent, and stay compliant at every stage of the employment journey. The company’s deep, country-level intelligence automates employment and compliance for more than 180 countries, reducing the burden on internal People, HR, and Payroll teams while saving on high costs of external advice.
Last year, Oyster launched a variety of products and services to give companies more tools and insights to scale their global operations with confidence. Global Payroll and Visa Sponsorships help simplify operations and support borderless teams, while the Salary Insights tool provides fair compensation recommendations for domestic and international employees. Additionally, Oyster Embedded is the category’s first no-code solution that enables customers to offer global hiring, payroll, and rewards right within their product.
“We are grateful that the Silver Lake Waterman team shares our belief that global employment shouldn’t be a transactional service—it’s a dynamic relationship that values human potential, fosters innovation, and fuels economic impact,” said Oyster co-founder and CEO, Tony Jamous. “At the heart of Oyster’s success is an unwavering commitment to our mission: we believe that by making it possible for companies everywhere to hire people anywhere, we can create a more sustainable and equitable future for all. We’re proud to contribute to a movement that makes human-centric employment available to workers globally.”
