On September 15, Atlas secured a strategic equity investment of up to $200m in partnership with Sixth Street Growth.

Atlas specializes in direct employer of record (EOR) solutions and enabling technology, contractor pay, consulting services, HR service delivery, and global mobility & visa offerings. The company is focused on supporting clients’ international expansion strategies in compliance with employment rules and regulations through its entities in ~165 countries. It rebranded from Elements Global Services to Atlas in June 2022, and its rebranding efforts reflect the flexibility, agility, and enabling technology required to meet client and worker UX expectations, talent needs, and data requirements intensified by recent global events.

As a result of this investment, Atlas will be able to enhance its technology platform to support localization and provide additional self-service functionality and automation features. The launch of the Atlas Human Experience Management (HXM) platform was coordinated with the organization’s rebranding efforts in June.

The funding also supports broader in-region customer support, including hiring additional native language staff to deliver in-country and in-time zone support to its clients and worksite employees. Atlas continues to hire in-country staff throughout all levels of its organization, including senior leadership. The expanded regional presence balances direct client and worksite employee support and technology.

The company maintains an aggressive inorganic growth strategy to broaden near-term service portfolio offerings, technology advances, and the addition of new in-country legal entities.

NelsonHall views this investment as a strategic enabler to support Atlas’ organic and inorganic growth strategies. It anticipates the expansion of Atlas’ portfolio through partnerships or the acquisition of companies delivering complementary services and technologies. These relationships will enable cross-selling opportunities and the development of targeted business development strategies. The company continues to expand its services and technology offerings to support all phases of the HR lifecycle, attracting prospective clients seeking a single vendor to manage comprehensive outsourcing or targeted out-tasking of its HR services.

Several other EOR vendors have secured equity funding to extend their capabilities, including:

• Omnipresent raised ~$138m over three funding rounds to support legal entity creation in ~80 markets and the development of its OmniPlatform technology stack
• Remote raised ~$496m over four funding rounds to support legal entity creation in ~65 markets and enrich its Remote technology stack, including the release of its contractor management, relocation, and API integration services and modules
• Velocity Global raised ~$500m to support multiple company acquisitions, including iWorkGlobal and Shield GEO, broaden its services portfolio, and expand its Global Work Platform functionality to support contractor payments.

The formalization of ‘work from anywhere’ policies and the continued impact of ‘the great resignation’ have contributed to a high level of global EOR market activity and client interest. To support global and service portfolio expansion, M&A transactions, and enabling technology enhancements, NelsonHall expects more strategic investment funding across the global EOR market in the year ahead.

Safeguard Global acquired Global Upside Corporation, a global expansion, technology, and services company based in San Jose, CA on January 25, 2022.

Global Upside specializes in EOR services, new entity incorporation, human resources, accounting, payroll, and tax & compliance solutions. The country footprint across both organizations is well aligned. This acquisition will add ~500 employees to the existing 1,100 Safeguard Global employees, to create a combined organization comprised of 1,600 employees. Global Upside has been rebranded as Safeguard Global.

Significant to this acquisition will be the ability for Safeguard Global to provide additional services to enrich its EOR offering, specifically adding front-end HR capabilities such as recruitment and in-country entity set-up expertise, to ensure clients are prepared for the future of work. Safeguard Global currently delivers onboarding, in-country compliance, HR technology, and centralized payroll services.

The acquisition of Global Upside positions Safeguard Global as one of the largest providers in terms of revenues in the EOR marketplace. NelsonHall estimates the combined EOR 2021 revenues for both organizations were $65m.

The acquisition of Global Upside supports the Safeguard Global ‘Work in Any Way’ workforce management vision, which considers where, when, and how people work to assure a people-centric, flexible, inclusive, and diverse organizational culture. The complementary service offerings provided by Global Upside will be valuable to organizations when they have determined that a market is suitable for a permanent in-country entity.

NelsonHall views this acquisition as a service expansion to support Safeguard Global’s end-to-end global growth journey. It anticipates synergies between the client portfolios to enable cross-selling opportunities. For example, in 2021, Safeguard Global had 72 EOR clients that opened new entities in ~100 countries. The clients leveraged their internal HR organizations to organize and complete the logistics of establishing these new entities. Moving forward, Safeguard Global will have the ability to provide these and additional direct services that will enable internal client resources to focus on strategic initiatives and core functional responsibilities.

Safeguard Global has a history of acquisitions, including GEDA in 2020, and WorkFor Group and AdminMe in 2019. The acquisition of Global Upside firmly cements the organization as a leader in the global EOR market.

Several other EOR vendors have made similar acquisitions to extend their capabilities, including:

• Velocity Global acquired iWorkGlobal in April 2021 and Shield GEO in July 2021
• TopSource Global Solutions and PEO Worldwide merged to form TopSource Worldwide in August 2021
• Deel acquired Roots, an HR software company, in January 2022.

The rapid increase in remote working combined with the impact of the ‘Great Resignation’ has contributed to a high level of Global EOR market activity and client interest. NelsonHall expects more acquisitions in the global EOR market in the year ahead to support rapid growth and capability expansions.

This past month, NelsonHall released the first market analysis dedicated to the Global Employer of Record (EoR) Services space, an emerging yet largely unknown HR outsourcing service model that enables growing multinational firms to compliantly employ foreign workers in support of global expansion initiatives.

While co-employment service models have historically been U.S. centric, global co-employment offerings have emerged, providing multinational firms with a highly agile, turnkey support model for rapid, compliant international expansion.

Global EoR services at a glance

Global Employer of Record services, also commonly referred to as Global PEO or International PEO services, facilitate international expansion by leveraging vendor-established legal entities and pre-defined country-specific contracts to employ workers in new countries of operation, where the organization lacks the proper business base, expertise, and capability to operate in full compliance. Contracted workers are thereby employed compliantly, in-country under the provider’s/partner’s established entities, while the client maintains full day-to-day control over workers’ activities and performance.

The service provides a comprehensive, highly localized HR and payroll support model for workers throughout the life of the contract and remains purposely decoupled and un-integrated from the organization's broader HR infrastructure and service delivery model.

While large multinational organizations are leveraging the service, the model is particularly well suited toward small and midsized firms operating in high-growth sectors, which often lack the resources and knowledge (time/cost, attorneys, expertise, infrastructure) to execute on a global expansion effort in-house.

The solution offers a lower risk, cost-effective, time-saving alternative (often deployable within days) to navigating the lengthy and complex process of establishing legal entities in-country, or simply deploying contract workers, which are often misclassified under local laws exposing the firm to fines, penalties, and compliance risks.

By design, the service model is particularly effective at enabling HR with greater speed and agility in supporting strategic business initiatives, leading to a competitive advantage for growth-focused multinational firms seeking to expand their footprints globally, test emerging markets, or access talent outside of their home country of operation.

Global EoR market outlook

Despite the recent global economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, buyers interviewed overwhelmingly indicated that global expansion remains in their plans in the coming few years, as borders re-open and economies restart. While North American-headquartered firms will remain the predominant target and adopter of global EoR services, Europe and Asia will provide strong pipelines for new client/new worker growth, as the top targets in focus for expansion by both external and regionally-based firms.

Further, with organizations of all sizes increasingly finding their brands expanding internationally, and the intensifying need across sectors to access top talent globally, particularly as the 'Work from Anywhere' trend continues breaking down talent access barriers, the demand for agile, compliant global HR and payroll operating models will continue to intensify, accelerating the global EoR services market size toward more than $1bn by 2024.

While buyers confirmed that the global EoR service enables HR with greater agility in supporting international growth strategies, its ability to transform operations is less impactful at this stage, partly due to the lack of digital maturity present in the market, but also the narrow scope, low volumes, short durations, and temporary/contract nature inherent to the global EoR service model. 

However, look for enabling technology platforms across the global EoR services marketplace to mature in the coming 12 to 24 months, particularly as differentiation in the space is commonly centered on the volume of entities under vendor control and in-country expertise, and the overall customer/worker experience. 

Despite global EoR workers being purposely unintegrated from the broader HR infrastructure and operating model, it is critical that employers provide the same level of employee experience expected by a traditional employee. Therefore, expect to see increasing vendor investments in maturing, developing, and offering digital enablers and capabilities including mobile-first design, deeper process automation, infusion of AI, and analytic insights.

Looking ahead, as the solution gains traction and adoption, expect to see a deeper focus by vendors in cultivating a technology-enabled, 'one-stop-shop' of global expansion enabling solutions. Marketplaces of integrated partner services and technology aren't there just yet, but I expect to see these gradually take shape as vendors seek to fill the white spaces within offerings and extend client value beyond their core service offering.

I’m excited to see this service mature as I believe it is an exceptional lever which HR leaders of emerging, growth-focused firms have available to quickly execute and deliver speed and agility for their business. With vendors in hyper growth mode and currently investing in advancing their capability, technology, and offerings, I will be keeping close watch on the space as it heats up and matures!

For more information, or to access to the Global EoR Services market analysis report, contact Guy Saunders.