The California-based startup aiming to transform employee leave has raised $35 million through its Series B Funding and UNLEASH spoke exclusively to CEO Deborah Hanus to get the inside track.
Funding in HR technology startups has continued apace throughout 2025.
California-based startup Maki has closed a $35 million Series B funding round to help drive development of its end-to-end employee leave management solution.
Sparrow Co-Founder and CEO, Deborah Hanus, exclusively shares with UNLEASH how taking an end-to-end approach to employee leave helps make workers feel support during major life events and mitigate risk for employers.
Sparrow, an employee leave management specialist, has secured $35 million in Series B funding.
The funding round was led by SLW and brings total investment in Sparrow to $64 million, following a $20 million Series A round in February 2022.
Sparrow provides an end-to-end leave management solution for modern employers to support workers during major life events. In March this year, it launched a global leave solution which tracks leaves anywhere in the world in a single unified global dashboard.
Speaking exclusively to UNLEASH, Sparrow Co-Founder and CEO Deborah Hanus says the funding will allow the company to “support even more customers and expand our product offerings” to address adjacent labor compliance issues.
“Sparrow is rethinking the infrastructure HR teams use to both stay compliant and care for their people during major life events.
“Leave does not have to be complicated — by handling all of the paperwork and compliance, Sparrow makes offering paid leave stress-free for employers and employees.”
San-Francisco-based Sparrow was founded in 2019 and has established a client base of more than 1,000 organizations, including OpenAI, Reddit, Eightfold.AI, Handshake, Bumble and Headspace.
It aims to address issues within the employee leave that can lead to mistakes by employers, particularly where it relates to significant events in employees’ lives – a factor that impacts on various facets when it goes wrong.
“When a major life event occurs in an employee’s life, that is an opportunity to show up for that employee — and make them feel supported, engendering loyalty, engagement, and retention,” Hanus explains.
“But leave is complicated, so often employers make mistakes — which results in the employee feeling underappreciated and negatively impacting employee retention.”
“It can also open the company up to compliance risk and costly payroll errors.”
Hanus adds that Sparrow’s end-to-end appr “mitigates these risks and has saved its customers nearly $300 million in payroll costs..
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Senior Journalist, UNLEASH
John Brazier is an experienced and award-winning B2B journalist and editor, with a strong track record of hosting conferences, webinars, roundtables and video products. He has a keen interest in emerging technologies within the HR space, as well as wellbeing and employee experience topics. Prior to joining UNLEASH, John both led and wrote for various global and domestic financial services publications, including COVER Magazine, The TRADE, and WatersTechnology.
Get in touch via email: john@unleash.ai
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