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November HR Tech insights: Lattice exits HRIS/payroll, Deel boosts governance, ADP acquires Pequity, and Mosey streamlines multi-state tax compliance
Hello HR Tech enthusiasts,
For this November edition, we are zooming in on four stories that say a lot about where the market is headed: embedded payroll reality checks, governance at rocket-ship startups, comp tech consolidation, and the unglamorous world of tax accounts that can make or break your week.
Let’s get into it.
What’s happening
Lattice has told customers that it will be sunsetting its HRIS and Payroll products relatively rapidly:
This comes not long after a very public push into HRIS and Payroll, including the launch of Lattice HRIS in fall 2024 and then Lattice Payroll in 2024/2025.
Why it matters: Embedded payroll got another reality check
At the start of the year, I went out on a limb and said that embedded payroll would be the single biggest disruptor of 2025, then followed up in July with a "halftime report" that was already pouring some cold water on that take.
Two big questions have been hanging over the embedded payroll story:
Lattice pulling back from HRIS and Payroll this quickly is a strong data point for option 2.
Remember, this is not a bootstrapped upstart taking a flyer. Lattice is:
If anyone was set up to make embedded payroll work at scale, they were on the shortlist. The fact that they are retreating after a relatively short window suggests that:
For everyone else who has been watching embedded payroll from the sidelines, this is another reminder: APIs are great, but they do not come with the domain expertise earned from 20 years of tax edge cases that the incumbents have already tripped over.
What’s happening
Deel has appointed Joe Kauffman as President and Chief Financial Officer. He joins after more than a decade at Credit Karma, where he served as CFO, President and eventually CEO.
As part of this transition:
So this is not just a standard upgrade in the finance seat; it is a re-architecture of the leadership table.
Why it matters: From "move fast" drama to IPO adulthood
A few months ago we spent an entire newsletter on the Deel espionage saga and what it revealed about leadership maturity and governance.
My take at the time was pretty simple:
The biggest risk at Deel was not the product, or the market, or the team of operators in the trenches. The risk was that immature or ethically questionable decisions at the very top could erase a ton of value that thousands of employees have been working to create.
Seen through that lens, this move is encouraging:
Is this enough to erase the concerns raised by the lawsuit and the stories we have already seen? Maybe not for everyone. Trust in global payroll is slow to rebuild, and plenty of buyers will remember the last year for a long time.
But if you are already heavily invested in Deel or evaluating them as part of a global payroll stack, this is at least a sign that the board is willing to professionalize the house instead of doubling down on the family dynamic.
In other words, this is the kind of "grown-up" move that needed to happen before any S-1 roadshow becomes credible.
What’s happening
On October 29th, ADP announced that it is acquiring Pequity, a compensation management software provider founded in 2019.
Pequity brings:
ADP is framing the deal as a way to:
Why it matters: Pairing UX with an unfair data advantage
We have seen a wave of modern comp tools over the last few years: Pave, Pequity, Welcome (now part of BambooHR), Carta’s comp products and others. They have raised the bar on:
The usual trade-off has been:
ADP buying Pequity is interesting because it tightens that gap. ADP already has:
Now they can plug a modern comp engine into that unparalleled data moat. That is a powerful combo.
It will not show up everywhere overnight, and ADP will move carefully. But this is another signal that even if ADP doesn't roll out new features as quickly as some peers, its leadership team continues to push all of the right buttons to put ADP in a future-proof position.
What’s happening
Mosey announced Tax Account Management, a new service focused on the least glamorous, most anxiety-producing part of payroll: state and local tax accounts.
Highlights from the launch:
In short, Mosey wants to be the nervous system that watches all the .gov portals so you do not have to.
Why it matters: Remote work and PE rollups created a quiet compliance mess
As a neutral advisor, I am not supposed to have favorite vendors. As a small business owner who hates nothing more than dealing with tax notices, I find Mosey’s mission very easy to cheer for.
Two big trends have made this problem worse:
Payroll systems like ADP, Paylocity, Rippling, or Deel will calculate and remit the taxes. The painful part is everything around that: opening accounts in the right sequence, keeping credentials alive, clearing up mismatch notices and monitoring whether a "small" mailer from a state agency is actually a big problem.
Mosey’s founder, Alex Kehayias, helped build Stripe Atlas, which I personally used when I launched OutSail to incorporate and open bank accounts with a click. This new product feels like the same core idea applied to long-lived state tax relationships instead of a one-time incorporation.
I am biased here, because this is the kind of unsexy problem that, when solved, gives small teams a disproportionate amount of their time and sanity back.
That is a wrap for November’s quick hitters.
Until next time!
