Exclusive: Gusto launches $200 million-plus tender offer
Gusto, an HR tech startup valued at more than $9 billion, is conducting an over $200 million tender offer via a new deal led by the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
The tender offer, which begins Monday and runs through July 8, will allow employees in the company to cash out some of their shares while giving the Canadian fund its first stake in the company.
“Given the momentum, we’ve had investors interested in owning Gusto stock for a long time,” Gusto CEO and cofounder Josh Reeves told Fortune via email. The offer will be open to both current and former employees with a minimum of two years of tenure. Gusto declined to disclose price per share and whether there is a maximum number of shares that employees can sell.
The deal was done at Gusto’s last valuation, $9.3 billion, and is led by Teachers’ Venture Growth, which is part of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan. (OTPP, the largest single-profession pension plan in Canada serving over 340,000 current and retired teachers, is also an investor in Canva, Databricks, and SpaceX.) OTPP is the anchor for the deal, and is joined by new and existing Gusto investors. It’s a full circle moment of sorts—Reeves’ parents are both teachers.
The tender offer, the third that Gusto has arranged for employees since its founding in 2012, comes as the market for initial public offerings remains limited. Several tech companies, including Circle and Omada Health, have had IPOs in recent weeks, but the overall number of public listings remains well below historical norms.
Reeves declined to comment on Gusto’s IPO plans, telling Fortune: “Gusto has been a long term focused, multi-decade, company from day one… When we have more details to share on an IPO, we’ll share it.”
The company’s last employee tender offer was in 2021, done in addition to the startup’s $175 million Series E funding round. Gusto—founded in 2011 by Reeves, Tomer London, and Edward Kim—has been free cash flow positive since early 2023.
As Fortune reported in May 2024, Gusto generated north of $500 million in revenue in its 2023 fiscal year. The company also said that it’s been growing over the last year, driven as the company grows existing products like health benefits and 401K management. In 2024, Gusto’s 401k business grew its ARR, or annual recurring revenue, about 50% year-over-year, while the unicorn’s Gusto Money spending account product grew ARR over 140% year-over-year.
HR tech has recently made headlines for the sprawling legal brawl between HR unicorns Rippling and Deel, but Reeves says that the space itself remains active and bright. For 2025, Reeves added the company is set to add 150,000 new small businesses to its platform, and is actively hiring, with a particular focus on R&D.
“There is tremendous opportunity in the broader HR tech space,” said Reeves. “More businesses are being created while at the same time more rules and regulations are being introduced. Gusto can help. I have conviction that there will be multiple $100 billion-plus new companies built in this space, including Gusto. And as a reminder, Intuit is a $200 billion-plus company today, ADP is a $100 billion-plus company today, and Paychex is a $50 billion-plus company today.”
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com