The impact of technology across many spheres of work and business may not be accurately quantified or measured. Technology has made things easy and will continue to, and talking about technology, our story today is about a Nigerian startup leveraging cloud computing and Africa’s infinite human resource capital to help businesses in the booming continent of Africa.
SeamlessHR has raised $10 million in a Series A funding round led by pan-African venture capital firm TLcom Capital and saw the participation of Lateral Frontier Ventures, Enza Capital, Ingressive Capital, and Capria Ventures.
SeamlessHR operates a product of the same name as the company which is a cloud-based end-to-end HR software that gives businesses in Africa the ability to manage and be in control of their human resource processes and workflow. Its goal is to help African businesses “leverage the continent’s greatest asset: abundant human capital” using its cloud-based resources HR and payroll software. With the newly-acquired funding, the company plans to begin regional expansion plans as well as set the next phase of its growth rolling.
Founded in 2018 by Emmanuel Okeleji (CEO) and Deji Lana (CTO), SeamlessHR’s product suite includes an HR management system, performance and competency management, HR management, payroll management, recruitment management and HR analytics. Explaining how SeamlessHR came into being, CEO Emmanuel Okeleji who ran a job aggregator platform called Insidify with CTO Deji Lana said that “The natural client for our job sites was the HR. So we thought, how can we help HR to become more productive and successful so that they can run a better, more profitable company and hire more people in the process?”
Another reason why Emmanuel Okeleji and Deji Lana made the leap from Insidify to SeamlessHR was that the former wasn’t a profitable venture and the founders couldn’t see growth and expansion in view. After launching SeamlessHR in 2018, the tables turned and there were significant changes in growth and revenue.
SeamlessHR says it has more than 100,000 employees across organizations using its platform, adding that the platform has the largest aggregation of medium-to-very large companies in Africa”. The company also boasts of rich human resource and payroll data as it has dealt with numerous companies in the African space.
SeamlessHR which currently is present in Nigeria and Kenya says it will be venturing into East African markets soon thanks to the new funds. The company’s CEO also mentioned that SeamlessHR would imminently go beyond its primary business of human resources and payroll and venture into other businesses relevant to its clients. A global expansion may also be another area the company is looking at as the CEO implied it. “We are building software solutions to optimize HR now, but in the future, we’ll go to other areas beyond HR. And we are positioned to build a global SaaS company because SaaS products can travel the world faster than, say, fintech. We’re beating global players in our local market and while we are not distracting ourselves now, we know we can play this game globally”, he said.
Speaking about TLcom’s Capital leading investment in SeamlessHR, Andreata Muforo, a partner at TLcom said that “The strong execution shown by Emmanuel and his team is a vital ingredient required to build a successful business and as they expand their products to include embedded finance and launch their solutions to new markets, we’re proud to partner alongside them and strengthen their push to unlock more value within Africa’s B2B space”.
