The San Francisco-based company ZenPayroll has offered a cloud-based system to automate tax calculations and payroll payments. Its web-based services are already used by more than 20,000 small businesses. The company has now changed its name to Gusto, and is competing in the workers’ compensation insurance marketplace. When it was still ZenPayroll, the company’s sights were set on helping the six million US-based small businesses – places like florists, churches, and salons – that have, in the past, done payroll by hand. But the company also announced that it will also be rolling out health benefits and workers’ compensation to these businesses.
Over the past few months, Gusto has quietly tested health benefits and workers’ compensation products. Now, it will offer both services to existing and new accounts, starting in California. That shift will put the San Francisco-based company in head-to-head competition with Zenefits, the powerful online health insurance broker. Traditionally, the two startups have been partners: Zenefits uses payroll data from the likes of ADP and ZenPayroll to manage its plans, but wants to reduce that dependency. As of late June, Zenefits claimed more than 10,000 accounts. Last year, it generated around $20 million in revenue and as of May its valuation was around $4.5 billion. CEO Parker Conrad told Fortune sales could quintuple this year.
So far, Gusto has raised approximately $86.1 million, including a massive $60 million round from Google Capital last April. As a side note, Google Capital just put $32.5 million into another disruptive insurance startup, Oscar Health. There are also plenty of other companies seeking a piece of the action, including those hoping to empower existing insurance brokers with cloud software, such as EaseCentral and Maxwell Health.