The trajectory of this young entrepreneur is that of a meteorite. Alex Bouaziz rolls out his CV with a lot of simplicity, however. The young man grew up in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. High school diploma at 16, engineering degree at 20 (obtained at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology), master’s degree in environment at MIT: it is precocious. He was only 21 when he entered the prestigious Imperial College in London to undertake a thesis on water engineering. “There, I understood that I was going to spend three or four years in a laboratory”, he says. He decides to give up research and follow in the footsteps of his father, Philippe Bouaziz, founder of Prodware.
In 2016, he returned to Israel, his second homeland, to set up his first business there. “I liked crypto. I launched one of the first small NFT games,” he says. This first experience confronts him with a very concrete problem: the difficulty of obtaining a visa for foreign developers, who are often forced to return to their country of origin. From there comes the idea that gave birth to Deel: a technological tool that would allow a company to flush out the best talents, wherever they are in the world.
A project incubated at the Y Combinator
With his Chinese co-founder Shuo Wang, he matured his project in Y Combinator, the incubator having hatched among others Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit… Officially launched in May 2019, the Deel platform allows employers to grow and hire talent without worrying about administrative constraints. It takes care of all the complexity of recruiting a freelancer or a full-time employee: labor law, taxation, payroll. In a few minutes, a company can thus sign a perfectly compliant employment contract in 150 countries. Beforehand, Deel did a job like no other: the young company worked with no less than 200 lawyers to absorb the tax and administrative constraints of the countries where it operates. One of the keys to success is on the side of the employees, whose lives Deel strives to make their lives easier. “The platform allows freelancers to choose how they want to be paid themselves: by Revolut, in cryptocurrencies, in local currencies, details its founder. Deel also offers the top of the market”, in terms of mutuals.
Fed up with fundraising, baby Deel is growing at an impressive speed: the first customers arrive in May 2019, sales accelerate the following spring and by the end of 2021, Deel had some 1,000 corporate clients. The third fundraising (“series C”), a capital increase of 150 million euros, brings in Andreessen Horowitz, one of the most prestigious investors in the Valley. The next round, $425 million, sees the arrival of another heavyweight, the Coatue fund, at a valuation of $5.5 billion. The platform now employs 500 people.
Parisian at heart, he is a fan of PSG
Living in New York, Alex Bouaziz is a nomadic entrepreneur – like the employees employed around the world via Deel technology. He has, he says, never worked in an office and can fly the San Francisco-registered Deel from anywhere. “Two things drive me, he explains. Simplifying business life and breaking down employment barriers. I want to give thousands of people the opportunity to work in the best companies in the world, regardless of the where they are”. Does he feel American, Israeli, French? American by his working methods, Israeli by his passport and his experiences, this cool-speaking young man also remains very connected to France. Fan of PSG, he is connected to the community of French entrepreneurs and enjoys chatting with Nicolas Julia, founder of SoRare or with Jean de La Rochebrochard, partner of the Kima Ventures fund.
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