Puzzl

Puzzl, which now operates as Zeal, was established in 2018 by co-founder Pranab Krishnan. The venture originated from the founders' frustrations with the inadequate options for managing payments for gig economy workers. The company's journey began with early support from Y Combinator's Summer 2019 class, securing $150,000 in a pre-seed round that same year. This was followed by a $1.4 million seed round in 2020 and a more substantial $13.8 million Series A in 2021. Coinciding with the Series A announcement, Puzzl underwent a significant rebranding to Zeal, a name chosen to reflect the team's passion for building the future of payroll. This transition also involved acquiring the premium domain Zeal.com. In November 2023, the company reportedly raised $14.5M in a Series B round, bringing its total funding to $28.5M.

The firm is a San Francisco-based entity that provides payroll management software. It specializes in developing a payment processing product tailored for the gig economy. The business model is centered on offering its payroll services to large business enterprises and platforms that are adopting modern solutions for managing their payroll operations. Zeal's core product is an automatic payroll management software designed to streamline and simplify the complexities of paying independent contractors and gig workers.

Keywords: Zeal, Puzzl, Pranab Krishnan, payroll management software, gig economy payments, payment processing, Y Combinator, payroll services, enterprise payroll, contractor payments, automatic payroll, financial technology, B2B fintech, payroll API, payroll infrastructure, HR technology, worker payments, compensation management