Human Interest Inc., a startup that helps employees at small and medium-sized businesses save for retirement, has raised $267 million in fresh financing.

The company announced the investment today. It detailed that the deal included debt financing as well as an equity funding round led by Baillie Gifford and Marshall Wace, one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Bloomberg reported that the raise closed at a $1.33 billion valuation.

San Francisco-based Human Interest provides a platform that helps small and medium-sized businesses provide 401(k) plans to employees. The software also offers features for managing other types of retirement accounts. According to Human Interest, its platform supports over one million workers at more than 25,000 businesses.

The company provides prepackaged integrations with popular payroll management applications. Using those integrations, Human Interest’s platform can automatically detect when a company hires new employees and determine when they become eligible to enroll in a 401(k) plan. From there, the software automatically enters employee information into enrollment forms to save time for users. 

Human Input automates several related tasks as well. According to the company, its platform can process changes to employee information without manual input. Human Interest also prepares some government filings on customers’ behalf, which it says not only saves manual work but also reduces their fiduciary liability.

The company says that it bases workers’ 401(k) investment portfolios on low-cost investment funds. Additionally, the platform promises to do away with several of the transaction fees typically charged by 401(k) providers. For workers that meet certain eligibility criteria, Human Interest offers another cost reduction feature called (k)ickstart that provides 3% cash back on some payroll contributions.

The company’s focus is not limited to 401(k) plans. It also offers IRA accounts that don’t charge transaction fees and allow users to roll over funds from existing retirement accounts. For workers at schools and nonprofits, Human Interest provides 403(b) plans.

The company’s annual recurring revenue surpassed $100 million earlier this year. According to Human Interest, its top line is expected to grow by another 70% in 2024. The company says that it can now maintain this growth rate without raising additional capital.

The company has begun laying the groundwork for an eventual stock market listing. In conjunction with today’s funding announcement, it hired two new financial executives who previously worked at publicly traded tech firms. Newly appointed Chief Financial Officer Tripp Faix and Chief Accounting Officer Jeff Buckley earlier worked at Marqeta Inc. and Palantir Technologies Inc., respectively.

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