Rippling: 16.8 billion dollars, a billion of recurring revenue, and a register the company controls
Key takeaways
- The Series G closed on 9 May 2025 at 16.8 billion dollars. It raised 450 million dollars and came with agreements to buy back up to 200 million of employee equity.
- According to the chief executive, annual recurring revenue is above 1 billion dollars and growing 78 per cent year on year, with growth speeding up for three quarters in a row.
- Rippling is the plaintiff in the racketeering and trade secret case against Deel. The case survived a motion to dismiss and is now in discovery.
Rippling and Deel sit in the same index, compete head to head and are suing each other. Hold either and you are exposed to how that ends, which is why the litigation appears on both pages and not just the defendant's. The business cases are still different, though. Rippling's comes down to the price a buyer pays against its own last round.
The commercial record
| Figure | What it is | Source and date |
|---|---|---|
| 16.8 billion dollars | Series G valuation, 450 million dollars raised | Rippling and CNBC, 9 May 2025 |
| Up to 200 million dollars | Simultaneous repurchase of equity from current and former employees | Rippling, May 2025 |
| Over 1 billion dollars | Annual recurring revenue, growing 78 per cent year on year | Stated by the chief executive, reported April 2026 |
With stated revenue growth of 78 per cent, the open question for a buyer is the price a seller will accept against a round that closed in May 2025. Secondary prices are negotiated, often at a discount to the last round, and here sellers needing cash, the missing listing date and the lawsuit all weigh on them. The growth rate does not.
Who is allowed to sell
Rippling keeps an unusually tight grip on its own register. In its June 2024 tender offer it shut out former employees working at eight named competitors, Deel and Workday among them. The company said tender rules require sharing private financial information that no business would want its rivals to have. Fair or not, the practical lesson for a buyer is that the issuer decides who trades, and can rule out entire groups of holders.
The litigation, from the plaintiff's side
Rippling filed in the Northern District of California on 17 March 2025, alleging that Deel groomed an employee in its Dublin office to take commercial information. Deel denies it and has counterclaimed. On 23 February 2026 the court denied Deel's motion to dismiss the racketeering and trade secret claims, so they go to discovery. On 26 September 2026 it refused to strike a key witness and sent Deel's main counterclaims to arbitration. No court has ruled on the merits for either side. Winning at the pleadings stage is not winning the case.
What a buyer is taking on before a listing
- A negotiated secondary price, often at a discount to the last round. That cuts both ways: it might be an entry point, or it might be the market pricing something the round missed.
- Legal costs and management time on a case that now has to go through discovery.
- An issuer that controls who can buy and sell, and has already shown it will shut holders out.
- No audited disclosure. The revenue numbers come from what executives say, not from published accounts.
- No filing, no timing. The chief executive calls a listing an obligation to investors and employees, but has not committed to a date.
Exposure before a listing
Access is through the secondary market, subject to the company's consent, its transfer restrictions and its rights of first refusal, and Rippling has shown it enforces all three. Unicorn Private takes secondary positions in established companies like this one. Here, two questions decide the outcome: will the transfer be approved at all, and does any discount to the round pay you enough for the litigation? Whether the business is growing is not the issue. Unicorn Club, the investor club of Unicorn Private, offers club deals in pre-IPO companies through a dedicated vehicle (SPV), for accredited and qualified investors, from 100,000 dollars.
The short answer
Rippling was valued at 16.8 billion dollars in May 2025 and reports more than 1 billion dollars of recurring revenue growing 78 per cent. It controls who may trade its shares, and it is in discovery against its closest competitor. The growth is on the record. The exit has no date. Understand the price against the round before you pay it.
Related guides
- Secondary transactions and right of first refusal (ROFR)
- How to value a private unicorn
- Pre-IPO due diligence checklist
- Anthropic: valuation, revenue and the road to an IPO
- OpenAI: valuation, the deferred IPO and what is actually documented
- ByteDance: a valuation set in the secondary market, and the TikTok question answered
- Unicorn tracker
- Unicorn Club
About the publisher
This guide is published by Unicorn Private Research, the research arm of Unicorn Private LLC, a Delaware private equity firm that acquires secondary stakes in late-stage private technology companies before their IPO. The firm invests only in established companies already valued above one billion dollars, not in early-stage start-ups, and its founders have been active in private equity and startup investing since 2005.
Unicorn Private is the first firm in the pre-IPO secondary market to create an open research centre in sixteen languages: guides, a tracker of the largest private technology companies, a glossary, and a frequently asked questions section, open to every reader, with every figure carrying a date and a link to a public source.
Sources
- Rippling announces Series G fundraising and tender offer, Rippling, May 2025
- Rippling bans former employees who work at competitors from its tender offer stock sale, TechCrunch, 7 June 2024
- People Center, Inc. v. Deel, Inc., complaint, United States District Court for the Northern District of California, filed 17 March 2025
- Order on motions to dismiss, People Center, Inc. v. Deel, Inc., No. 3:25-cv-02576-CRB, 23 February 2026
- Deel files countersuit against Rippling as rivalry escalates, TechCrunch, 25 April 2025
This page in other languages
- Rippling: 16,8 miliardi di dollari, un miliardo di ricavi ricorrenti e un libro soci che decide la società (Italiano)
- Rippling : 16,8 milliards de dollars, un milliard de revenus récurrents et un secondaire sous le prix du tour (Français)
- Rippling: 16,8 Milliarden Dollar, eine Milliarde wiederkehrender Umsatz und ein Sekundärmarktpreis unter dem Rundenpreis (Deutsch)
- Rippling: 16.800 millones de dólares, 1.000 millones de ingresos recurrentes y un secundario por debajo del precio de la ronda (Español)
- Rippling: 16,8 bilhões de dólares, 1 bilhão de receita recorrente e um secundário abaixo do preço da rodada (Português)
- Rippling: 16,8 млрд долларов, 1 млрд повторяющейся выручки и вторичный рынок ниже цены раунда (Русский)
- Rippling：168亿美元、10亿美元经常性收入，以及低于融资轮价格的二级市场价格 (中文)
- Rippling：168億ドル、経常収益10億ドル、ラウンド価格を下回るセカンダリー価格 (日本語)
- Rippling: 16.8 अरब डॉलर, एक अरब डॉलर का आवर्ती राजस्व, और राउंड मूल्य से नीचे सेकेंडरी मूल्य (हिन्दी)
- Rippling: 168억 달러, 10억 달러의 반복 매출, 그리고 라운드 가격을 밑도는 세컨더리 가격 (한국어)
- Rippling: 16,8 milyar dolar, bir milyar dolar yinelenen gelir ve tur fiyatının altında bir ikincil piyasa fiyatı (Türkçe)
- Rippling: 16,8 miliar dolar, pendapatan berulang satu miliar, dan harga sekunder di bawah harga putaran (Bahasa Indonesia)
- Rippling: 16.8 مليار دولار، ومليار دولار من الإيرادات المتكررة، وسعر في السوق الثانوية دون سعر الجولة (العربية)
- Rippling: 16,8 tỷ USD, doanh thu định kỳ một tỷ và giá thứ cấp thấp hơn giá vòng gọi vốn (Tiếng Việt)
- Rippling: 16,8 mld dolarów, miliard przychodów powtarzalnych i cena wtórna poniżej ceny z rundy (Polski)