Check Launches With $35 Million To Streamline Payroll

Payroll infrastructure startup Check, which purports to simplify the payroll process, launched publicly Wednesday (Jan. 27) with $35 million in Series B funding, according to a press release.

Stripe and Thrive Capital contributed to the round, the release stated.

With the close of the round, Check has now raised $44 million to date since its formation in 2019. The new funding will be used to grow the team, the release stated.

“We built Check to enable innovation in the way people get paid, and I’m thrilled to share our public launch,” said Check Co-Founder and CEO Andrew Brown in the release. “With Check, developers can now build wage payments into their apps just as easily as accepting an online payment.”

Financial services and payments in particular have seen progress in the last 10 years, the release stated.

“By effectively creating an abstraction layer across an increasingly fragmented financial system, a new class of API-centric businesses made it possible for developers to embed payment and data tools into their products,” the release stated. “These platforms made it easy to facilitate payments to businesses.”

However, without a similar program for payroll, the release stated, developers have seen difficulties getting payments from businesses to their employees. And payroll is complex, with over 13,000 different U.S. tax jurisdictions with their own sets of rules.

Check, according to the release, can help by reducing risk and friction in the payroll process, making it easier to navigate.

According to PYMNTS, while many finance teams might have been unprepared for the digital shift that came with the pandemic, they’re catching up quickly. Many are now embracing automated accounts payable (AP) processes, which are instrumental to a remote work environment.