Alex Bouaziz

Alex Bouaziz was born in France and grew up in Paris and Tel Aviv, Israel. He graduated from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology and later earned a master’s degree in civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he met his future Deel co-founder Shuo Wang; both graduated from MIT in 2014.⁠[1][2][2][3]

Before founding Deel, Bouaziz co-founded the investment fund Sarona Ventures.⁠[2]

In 2019, Bouaziz and Shuo Wang founded Deel and joined Y Combinator’s Winter 2019 batch, with him as chief executive officer. Both had faced challenges hiring international workers in their earlier ventures; Deel began as a product to hire and pay contractors worldwide and later grew into a platform covering payroll, HR and compliance.⁠[1][4][4][2][5]

In 2020, Bouaziz was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Finance list.⁠[3]

On March 17, 2025, the HR software company Rippling (legal name People Center, Inc.) sued Deel in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and in its amended complaint named Alex Bouaziz, Deel chairman and chief financial officer Philippe Bouaziz (Alex’s father), and chief operating officer Dan Westgarth as individual defendants. Rippling alleges the defendants carried out a corporate espionage scheme in which Alex Bouaziz recruited Keith O’Brien, a Rippling employee based in Ireland, to act as a spy for Deel and obtain confidential information from Rippling’s internal databases in exchange for cryptocurrency payments. Rippling brings six causes of action, including a civil claim and conspiracy claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and misappropriation of trade secrets; these are allegations and have not been established by a court.⁠[6][7][7][7][7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

In related proceedings in Ireland’s High Court, O’Brien stated in a sworn affidavit that Alex Bouaziz recruited him to stay at Rippling as a covert source and transmit confidential materials, and O’Brien admitted to spying for Deel. On April 10, 2025, Justice Mark Sanfey granted Rippling’s motion to add Alex Bouaziz and two Deel in-house lawyers to the case. Deel has denied the allegations.⁠[8][8][8][8][8]

In late April 2025, Deel sued Rippling in the Superior Court of Delaware, accusing Rippling of a long-running pattern of attacking competitors through litigation, regulatory complaints and misleading marketing, and alleging that Rippling had also placed a spy inside Deel; in June, Deel’s amended complaint further alleged that a Rippling competitive intelligence employee had impersonated a Deel customer to gain access to its systems. A Deel spokesperson said at the time that Bouaziz lives in Israel.⁠[9][9][9][10][9]

On June 3, 2025, Bouaziz announced in a post that Deel had reached a $1 billion revenue run rate just over six years after its founding and had been profitable for nearly three years. On October 20 of that year, Deel announced a $300 million Series E round at a $17.3 billion valuation.⁠[5][5][5][11]

On February 23, 2026, Judge Charles R. Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted Deel’s motion to dismiss Rippling’s state law claims for failure to state a claim and denied the defendants’ other motions, including motions to dismiss for forum non conveniens, the motions by the Bouazizes and Westgarth to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and insufficient service, and Deel’s anti-SLAPP motion and request for attorney fees. The federal claims, including RICO and trade secret claims, therefore proceed; the ruling is a procedural decision made on the assumption that the complaint’s allegations are true, not a finding of fact on the allegations.⁠[7][7][7][7][6][7]

As of October 2026, the case remained in discovery, with filings by Bouaziz’s counsel as recently as October 20, and the court had scheduled a discovery status conference for November 5, 2026.⁠[6][6][6]

As of October 2026, Bouaziz is chief executive officer of Deel, leading its product, engineering and go-to-market teams and handling acquisitions and partnerships; Deel then had more than 7,000 team members in more than 110 countries, had raised more than $1 billion at a $17.3 billion valuation, and served more than 40,000 customers. Philippe Bouaziz is Deel’s executive chairman and chief strategy officer. Bouaziz also invests in early-stage technology companies, including ClickHouse, Kalshi, Ramp and Clay.⁠[2][2][12][2]

Deel: Official website: https://www.deel.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]

X: Public account: https://x.com/Bouazizalex (opens in a new window)⁠[2]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexbouaziz/ (opens in a new window)⁠[2]