Rippling
“Can a unified employee-data platform become the operating system for every financial and IT workflow a business runs — from payroll to corporate cards to global contractor payments?”
Founded in 2016 by Parker Conrad after his departure from Zenefits, Rippling started as an HR + IT platform with a thesis that a single employee record could automate downstream systems. Over time it expanded from HRIS/payroll into IT management (device management, IAM) and then into financial services (corporate cards, expense management, global contractor payments). By 2024 it had assembled a full procure-to-pay Finance Cloud alongside its HCM suite, competing directly with Brex, Mercury, and Ramp on spend management while also rivaling Deel on global EOR and contractor payroll.