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Pave funding, valuation and investors
Real-time compensation benchmarking and merit-cycle planning for startups.
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Funding, valuation & investors
Answer-first snapshotLatest funding
Series C
$100M · June 2022
Latest known valuation
$1.6B
Series C · June 2022
Total disclosed equity funding
$116M
Excludes debt, grants, acquisitions, secondaries, and IPO proceeds.
Current status
private
growth · San Francisco, CA
Investors in latest funding
Lead: Index Ventures
Overview
Pave provides real-time compensation benchmarking and merit-cycle planning for startups and tech companies, integrating with HRIS, ATS, and equity systems. Kristina Shen led a $16M Series A in 2020 with Bessemer participating; the company raised a $46M Series B in August 2021. Index Ventures led a $100M Series C in June 2022 at a $1.6B valuation, concurrently acquiring Advanced-HR (Option Impact) from Morgan Stanley — combining live HRIS-connected data with legacy survey history covering 5,700+ companies post-deal.
Why Pave is interesting
Kristina Shen led a16z's Series A; Index led a $100M Series C at $1.6B while acquiring Option Impact — merging live HRIS data with Morgan Stanley's comp survey history.
Product & use cases
Compensation planning software with real-time benchmarking from integrated HRIS, ATS, and equity tools plus merit-cycle workflow and communications.
- Comp benchmarking for venture-backed startups and scale-ups
- Merit cycle planning, approvals, and employee communications
- Equity and cash compensation planning tied to live market data
Key facts
- a16z portfolio status: Active
- Series A (2020): $16M led by a16z; Bessemer participated (TechCrunch)
- Series C (Jun 2022): $100M led by Index at $1.6B valuation; acquired Option Impact from Morgan Stanley (PR Newswire)
- 5,700+ companies in combined benchmarking database after Option Impact acquisition (Pave blog)
Funding history (newest first)
Series C
2022-06 $100M Valuation: $1.6BSource: Read source · prnewswire.com
Series A
2020 $16MSource: Read source · techcrunch.com
Investors in our directory
Funds linked from Pave's profile — open a fund page for stage focus and related deal articles.
Competitive landscape
Edge: Real-time HRIS integrations beat stale surveys — largest private-company comp dataset after Option Impact acquisition merged live and historical data.
Pave leads integrated comp planning for venture-backed companies. Carta competes on equity-native data from cap tables; Radford serves larger enterprises with survey-based benchmarks.
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Carta Total Comp direct
Equity-heavy comp data from Carta cap table users.
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Radford incumbent
Survey-based executive comp benchmarks; slower refresh cycle.
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Levels.fyi adjacent
Crowdsourced tech comp; less HRIS-integrated planning workflow.
Notable stories
- Founder Matt Schulman launched real-time benchmarking only after hitting a chicken-and-egg problem — companies wouldn't integrate HRIS data without benchmarks, so Pave offered free benchmarking in exchange for data and reached 2,700 integrated customers before Series C (Pave blog).
- Pave acquired Option Impact from Morgan Stanley in June 2022 the same day it announced $100M Series C — merging Morgan Stanley's survey history with Pave's live HRIS feeds into the world's largest private-tech comp database at the time (PR Newswire).
Industries
Market / IPO context
Editorial / static context — not a live quote.
Related funding articles
Venture Capital Tracker pieces that cover Pave's financing or category context.
FAQs about Pave
Practical answers founders, operators, and investors typically search for.
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Editorial note: AI tools assisted with research, structure, or drafting. Venture Capital Tracker retains human editorial responsibility for factual accuracy, relevance, and source quality before publication.