SA国际传媒

, an HR tech company valued at nearly $10 billion, has agreed to acquire , a startup that provides retirement plans to small and medium-sized businesses, on Wednesday.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. The transaction comes amid an uptick in startups buying their venture-backed peers in 2025.

Interestingly, the two companies have been partners since 2016, when Gusto tapped Guideline to provide retirement plans to its customers. In January, that partnership deepened with Guideline announcing that it was with Gusto Embedded Payroll, marking Guideline鈥檚 鈥渇irst and most established payroll integration.鈥�

Founded in 2015 by and , Guideline has raised nearly $340 million in funding, per SA国际传媒 . Investors include ,,,听补苍诲 , among others. Its last funding round was led by General Atlantic that valued the company at over $1.1 billion.

Gusto, founded in 2011, has raised over $746 million in funding, according to SA国际传媒 . Backers include ,,,听补苍诲 , among others.

Both companies鈥� target customers are small businesses.

According to CNBC, Gusto had more than $500 million in annualized revenue as of 2023, and Guideline鈥檚 annualized revenue as of January totaled $140 million.

It鈥檚 not the first time a smaller player in the retirement space has attracted the attention of a larger company. In January 2023, investment giant took a minority stake in venture-backed SMB 401(k) provider .

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Related reading:

• Wealth Management Startups See Funding Rise
• Retirement Planning Tools See Plentiful Funding

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