(Bloomberg) — Checkr Group Inc., the background-check vendor that got its start screening couriers and rideshare drivers, has boosted revenue by increasing its customer base to include more large enterprises.
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Revenue exceeded $700 million in 2023, Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yanisse said in an interview. That was roughly double the level in 2021, the company said. Over the past year, San Francisco-based Checkr has signed on large clients including OpenAI, Kia Corp., Birkenstock Holding and Subway, helping it notch 100,000 North American active customers in the period.
The company declined to disclose its latest valuation. It said it was valued at $5 billion in April 2022, when it raised $120 million in an extension of its Series E round.
This latest financial disclosure underscores Checkr’s efforts to ensure long-term growth beyond just serving the gig-economy industry. The company continues to consider an initial public offering as it had in 2021, but declined to commit to a time frame.
Earlier this year, the company laid off 382 workers, or 32% of its staff, in an effort to protect the “long-term health” of the business, a spokesperson said. The firm currently has more than 750 employees, including newly appointed C-suite executives like its chief product officer, chief technology officer and chief operating officer, who the spokesperson said would lead the company in its “next chapter of growth.”
When Checkr was founded 10 years ago, it focused on the budding gig economy that saw the rise of Uber Technologies Inc. and DoorDash Inc. It helped these companies scale their services quickly as its software was capable of handling large volumes of background checks on millions of drivers and couriers.
Unlike traditional background check services that require manual work like gathering documents from various government and judicial systems about an individual’s history, Checkr maintains partnerships with governments so it can tap a large digital database of public records.
Even as rideshare and delivery marketplaces have begun to mature, the growing appeal of remote and flexible work has allowed Checkr to offer its services to other types of corporate customers.
“We are seeing an explosion of job and work marketplaces for health care, for accountants, for any professional job that you can think of,” Yanisse said.
More recently, Checkr has expanded its customer base to include non-tech sectors such as retail, manufacturing and hospitality. It also introduced a personal background-check product this year, letting individuals ensure the accuracy of their history before it’s seen by banks, landlords and potential employers.
Over the next few years, the company hopes to expand to new markets beyond North America. “There’s lots of demand for us in Europe and in English-speaking countries,” Yanisse said.
(Company corrects magnitude of sales growth in second paragraph.)
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