Deputy named Scaleup of the Year at Startup Daily Awards

A decade after the term “unicorn” was first coined to describe a startup worth more than $1 billion, software scaleup Deputy joined that rarefied atmosphere in 2024.

Deputy became the first unicorn tech company to emerge in two years in Australia when a A$37 million buy in from a US strategic partner in March gave the 15-year-old scaleup a $1 billion-plus valuation. That investment nearly trebling of the company’s valuation from $423 million following a $111m Series B in November 2018.

But that measure of worth is not the reason the Sydney-based casual workforce management platform was named the 2024 Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards’ Scaleup of the Year.

What impressed the Best in Tech awards judges is the company’s turnaround over the past 18 months, including returning to profitability last financial year, and strong growth in Aussie, UK, and US markets, with revenue growing by nearly 50% alongside a similar increase in headcount.

The company delivered an $8.5 million statutory profit in FY23, a turnaround from a $24.9 million loss 12 months earlier. Impressively, revenue trebled in just three years to pass $100 million in annual recurring revenue by 2023.

It’s been a period of rapid growth for Deputy taking the business to a new level globally.

In March, US-based Sejal Patel Daswani, Visa’s former HR strategy leader, joined the team as chief people officer, bolstering the women in senior leadership to 80% of the company’s C-Suite under CEO Silvija Martincevic.

The following month Alla MacDonald was named as senior vice president of strategic finance and operations and Keshila Vallot Shannon as senior vice president of global marketing.

The investment from and strategic partnership with Express Employment Professionals (EPP), a 41-year-old privately owned staffing business, has the potential to see Deputy’s impact soar. EEP has more than 860 locations in the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, employing 492,000 people worldwide.

More than 330,000 workplaces now use Deputy to create better work experience for 1.4 million scheduled workers globally.

Deputy was a finalist in the Scaleup of the Year category, presented by AWS Startups, alongside AssuranceLab, which solves the problem of lengthy, complex and expensive audits for business; accounting solution Hnry, which saves sole traders 70% of the time they spend on tax and financial admin weekly; and Xemplo, the HR and workforce compliance platform.

At the gala event, held at the Ivy Ballroom in Sydney on September 4, Deputy chief financial officer Emma Seymour said being named Scaleup of the Year was a “wonderful moment”.

It was also a delight for AWS Startups boss John Kearney, who, in presenting the award to the Deputy team, revealed to the 270-strong audience at the awards dinner that he’d previously worked at Deputy and knew many of those joining him on stage, adding, with a grin, that he played no part in the judging.

Emma Seymour said to win against such a high-calibre cohort is a wonderful acknowledgment of the “incredible work” by Deputy’s staff.

“It’s been a very exciting couple of years for us. We’ve had a lot of wins and lots to celebrate,” she told Startup Daily.

“So just being able to accept this tonight on behalf of our 400-plus Deputies now clocking in every day to improve the world of work is a true privilege.”

Deputy was founded by Steve Shelley and Ashik Ahmed in 2008, for businesses employing hourly or shift-based workforces to deal with issues such as time management, scheduling, time sheets, and communication. Ahmed stepped down as CEO last year after six years, with US-based Martincevic taking the helm.

Seymour said there are now 2.7 billion shift workers globally and the Deputy team clocks on daily to simplify their work and solve complex problems in elegant ways.

“We have a wonderful group of people that are just incredibly dynamic and intelligent and passionate about our purpose,” she said.

“And it’s wonderful just seeing that impact. We’re helping improve the lives of workers and employees.”

So what’s next for Australia’s newest unicorn?

“We have a very, very ambitious plan, a very ambitious mission, and we’ve only just gotten started. So stay tuned,” Seymour said.

“I think, there is no shortage of opportunity for Deputy, and it’s really our future to write. We’ll have more to report on soon, I’m sure.”

There was one final piece of serendipity in Deputy receiving Scale of the Year when the company’s communications director, Mat Beeche, joined his team on stage.

Beeche founded Startup Daily back in 2012, just as Australia’s startup sector was beginning to power up.

“Without his foresight we wouldn’t be here tonight,” Startup Daily editor Simon Thomsen told the gathering.

Now more than 1 million readers annually check out the latest in ANZ startup news for free, via Startup Daily.

See the full list of 2024 Startup Daily Awards winners here.

This article is brought to you by Startup Daily, with the support of AWS Startups.