Leave Management Gets a Tech Makeover: Sparrow Raises $35M to Scale Compliance Automation for the Modern Workforce

In an age when managing employee leave can feel more like navigating a minefield than an act of workplace compassion, Sparrow is making the case that it doesn’t have to be this hard. The San Francisco-based startup, known for modernizing how companies handle parental, medical, and other types of employee leave, just closed a $35 million Series B round led by growth-stage investor SLW, bringing its total funding to $64 million.

This latest infusion of capital is aimed at supercharging Sparrow’s global leave management platform, which promises to do what spreadsheets and legacy HR tools can’t: untangle the bureaucratic knots of compliance, insurance, and payroll coordination. The company’s vision goes beyond leave itself, setting its sights on adjacent compliance issues that bog down HR departments across industries.

“Leave is complicated — and stressful,” said Deborah Hanus, CEO and cofounder of Sparrow. “It touches so many aspects of the company — legal compliance, insurance, state agencies, payroll, HRBPs, managers, and employees. Everything is always changing, and no one has the data they need when they need it.”

Sparrow’s pitch is deceptively simple: take a high-friction, high-risk process — managing employee leave — and make it feel seamless. Its solution blends automated workflows with human support, ensuring compliance with ever-shifting local and federal laws while also enhancing the employee experience. In an era where burnout and life-work balance dominate workplace discourse, that’s not a nice-to-have — it’s a strategic imperative.

The HR community agrees. According to SHRM Chief Transformation Officer Andy Biladeau, leave management has remained a top concern among the organization’s 325,000 members. “It’s inspiring to see the meaningful impact Sparrow is making in this space,” Biladeau said, adding that SHRM receives over 60,000 calls annually, with leave issues consistently near the top.

For companies like Aura, managing leave across distributed workforces was once a logistical nightmare. “Having Sparrow to navigate labor laws and align with our policies has been invaluable," said Angela Barker, Aura’s Senior Director of Total Rewards and Operations.

The financial return has also been compelling. At Eightfold AI, Sparrow didn’t just solve compliance issues — it generated measurable savings. “Sparrow pays for itself six or seven times over,” said Sonya Miller, VP of People Operations.

Investors are taking notice. “They are addressing one of the most complex and underserved areas of HR,” said Matt Walsh, Managing Director at SLW. “By combining deep compliance expertise with intelligent automation, Sparrow is transforming a significant pain point into a streamlined, employee-centric experience.”

Sparrow’s momentum is backed not just by capital but by marquee customers. OpenAI, Reddit, and Oura are among more than 1,000 companies using Sparrow’s platform to manage employee leave with a blend of automation and empathy. On G2, it holds a near-perfect 4.8 out of 5 stars — not a common feat in a space known more for red tape than rave reviews.

Jeffrey Katzenberg, cofounder of WndrCo and an early believer in the company, said it best: “When someone has a life event that requires them to take leave, great employers step up so that no one has to choose between work and the people they love. With Sparrow, a seamless leave experience brings employees back more loyal, more engaged, and eager to share just how supported they felt.”

With fresh capital in the bank and a growing list of enterprise clients, Sparrow is positioning itself not just as a leave management solution, but as a cornerstone of modern human capital infrastructure. In the fragmented landscape of HR tech, that’s a rare kind of clarity — and one investors are betting big on.