Zeal

Zeal, operated by Puzzl Group Inc. and formerly named Puzzl, provides embedded onboarding, payroll and billing infrastructure for workforce platforms including staffing companies, on-demand labor marketplaces, EOR/PEO providers and workforce management software. The platform is organized into three products: Onboard (digital worker onboarding with document collection, e-signature, tax withholding forms, certifications, labor posters, benefits administration, new hire reporting and remote Form I-9 with E-Verify), Pay (automated payroll and gross-to-net calculation, multi-location taxes, garnishments, overtime and minimum wage rules, time-off accruals, unemployment and workers' compensation handling, KYC, tax reporting and filing, paystubs, paycards and digital wallets), and Bill (converting worker pay into accounts receivable, client invoicing and collection, with integrated capital and payment routing for cash-flow management).

The company delivers these capabilities through APIs and embeddable components, plus a no-code, white-label branded mobile worker app, an admin dashboard, integrations and a full-service data migration offering. Zeal supports both W-2 employees and 1099 contractors, including deductions and garnishments for 1099 workers and daily pay for W-2 workers, and states that it supports unlimited workers per FEIN. It operates a proprietary compliance engine covering more than 11,000 tax jurisdictions and reports SOC 2 compliance. Zeal describes itself as a financial technology company rather than a bank; banking services are provided by Bangor Savings Bank, Member FDIC, which also issues its Mastercard debit card.

Zeal was founded in 2019 and participated in Y Combinator's Summer 2019 batch. It is headquartered in San Francisco and, per its YC profile, had a team size of 45.

Founding story

Zeal was founded in 2019 by Kirti Shenoy (co-founder and CEO) and Pranab Krishnan (co-founder and CTO), and was part of Y Combinator's Summer 2019 cohort. The company originally operated under the name Puzzl; its corporate entity remains Puzzl Group Inc. According to secondary coverage, the founders built the company around the view that traditional payroll systems were poorly suited to contingent, gig and staffing workforces, and set out to create API-first infrastructure that platforms could use to embed and customize their own payroll products.

Business model

Zeal sells infrastructure to other businesses (workforce platforms) that embed onboarding, payroll and billing into their own products. Delivery is via APIs, embeddable UI components, a white-label mobile worker app and an admin dashboard, supported by fully managed implementation and free data migration. Sales are demo-led rather than self-serve based on the website's calls to action.

The sources do not state Zeal's own pricing. Zeal markets revenue-sharing style upside to its customers, describing how platforms can generate net new revenue through wallets, paycards, interest and interchange, indicating a payments-linked economics component alongside its software platform.

Traction

As of the 2021 Series A announcement the platform was live in all 50 US states and American territories, processing payroll for W-2 employees and payments for 1099 contractors. The Y Combinator profile lists a team size of 45. Public case studies cover workforce platforms including Wonolo, Qwick, Traba, WorkGenius, Lawtrades, NurseIO, Backlit, Lead & Gain and ACE FMS. Aggregated third-party data reports $29.0M raised across two rounds.

Latest developments

A $15M Series B led by Portage was reported in October 2024. The company's website carries 2026-dated content, including a "2026 State of Workforce Platforms Benchmark Report" and blog posts through August 2026, and lists a Bill product for converting worker pay into client receivables plus additional products marked "Coming Soon."