Hello HR Tech enthusiasts,

Summer’s barely started, yet the deal-making thermostat is already set to scorching. Grab an iced coffee (or something stronger), and let’s unpack one of the most interesting stories of the year:

Acrisure’s $1.1 billion bid for Heartland Payroll.

On paper it’s a tidy carve-out; in practice it’s a flashing road sign for where the “people-platform” race is headed. Let’s zoom in.

What Acrisure just bought

Acrisure has always been an acquisition machine, but its latest target is a very different animal. The brokerage-turned-fintech player just agreed to buy Heartland Payroll, and the 50,000+ Main Street businesses on its books, for $1.1 billion, with closing slated for the back half of 2025.

Why payroll? Why now?

At first glance, a payroll engine looks like an odd fit for a firm that built its $32 billion valuation on property-and-casualty and employee-benefits commissions.

The logic is distribution: Heartland drops a pre-segmented pipeline of SMB employers into Acrisure’s lap, each already wired for recurring payments.

Wrap those relationships with P&C, medical, and voluntary lines—plus compliance add-ons—and the lifetime value per account leaps without a single cold call.

The tech itself doesn’t have to out-Gusto Gusto; it just has to keep HR and finance teams logging in every week.

The bigger story: a mid-market race to build “pseudo-PEOs”

Look past the headline and you’ll spot a familiar shape. For years the PEO model proved that payroll platforms, benefits programs, and outsourcing services sell better as a bundle, especially to companies under 100 employees.

The catch is scalability: co-employment is an inflexible model and fixed admin fees make full PEOs hard to justify once headcount creeps past a few hundred.

Cue a mid-market race to deliver PEO-like bundles; insurance, HR tech & outsourcing services stitched together, without the co-employment baggage.

Players are charging the hill from every direction:

• PEOs buying tech. TriNet scooped up Zenefits, Vensure folded Namely into its PrismHR group, and CoAdvantage recently merged with PrimePay to own more proprietary software.
• Brokers adding consulting power. OneDigital nabbed Triad HR Tech; Gallagher hoovered up iBTR and OperationsInc, folding HR consulting & outsourcing into traditional brokerage arms.
• Vendors moving into services. Rippling’s ASO, ADP Comprehensive Services and Dayforce Managed Services all let buyers outsource HR ops without adding headcount.

Acrisure’s move is the first time a broker has leapt clear over the services layer and captured the tech rail itself.

By parking payroll in-house, it doesn’t just defend its book; it turns every paycheck into an always-on storefront for insurance, compliance and risk services.

Why this matters for everyone else

The message is blunt: whether you start life as a software vendor, a PEO, or a benefits shop, the finish line is the same—become the platform your clients never outgrow.

So if you’re sitting in a brokerage boardroom, the homework is clear: map your “buy-build-partner” options now, while the field is still forming.

For tech vendors, assume every broker in your pipeline is suddenly evaluating whether you’re a friend, a future feature, or an acquisition target.

And for HR teams, brace for a flood of “one-invoice” pitches that promise simplicity

The platform land-grab is officially on.

Keep your eyes peeled for the next “wait, they bought what?” headline—because after Acrisure, nobody wants to be caught platform-less.

Until next month!