From travel visas to sponsoring green cards, today’s companies deal with a lot of documents to keep up with the demands of a global workforce.
A Chicago-based startup called Envoy Global has built enterprise software for processing the relevant paperwork. It also works with a law firm to offer companies legal advice pertaining to immigration and visas.
Envoy Global has raised a $21 million Series C led by growth equity firm Catalyst Investors. Existing investor General Catalyst also participated.
Envoy Global’s clients include Grubhub, CBS Interactive and Dow Jones. CEO Dick Burke says they’ve been working with clients on things like H-1B Visas for science and engineering talent or professional P visas, including team players for the Chicago Blackhawks.
“Law firms have traditionally been very reticent to embrace technology,” Burke told TechCrunch. He says that right now Envoy Global’s main competition is traditional law firms, but that it plans to sell its software to them as well.
Right now customers pay a flat fee for each request. There’s no added cost for legal services, which Burke believes is a big benefit to Envoy Global.
It’s not just U.S. employees, the company works with countries all over including China, Singapore and India. Yet in America, the topic of immigration has been very controversial, especially following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. When asked about whether President Trump’s rhetoric about prioritizing American workers will impact its business, Burke said that he wasn’t too concerned because most of the conversations have been about illegal immigration and Envoy Global is only focused on legal workers.
Scott Griffith, executive in residence at General Catalyst and chairman of Envoy’s board, said that he invested because “their unique combination of legal services and technology takes the friction out of the immigration process and creates a more positive and predictable experience. With rapidly changing policy and enforcement standards, the demand for Envoy’s services is only going to increase as companies realize they cannot manage this process with traditional methods.”
Envoy Global previously raised over $27 million dating back to 2014.
