Kenya’s HR startup, Workpay, announced that it has raised $2.7 million in a pre-Series A funding round to expand its services in 40 countries in Africa.
The participants in this funding round included Launch Africa, Saviu Ventures, Acadian Ventures, Proparco, Fondation Botnar, Kara Ventures, Axian, P1 Ventures and Norrsken. In 2020, Workpay raised $2.1 million in a seed funding round led by Kepple Africa Ventures with participation from Y Combinator, Soma Capital, Musha Ventures, P1 Ventures, and other angel investors.
Launched in 2019 by co-founder and CEO, Paul Kimani and COO, Jackson Kungu, Workpay provides a complete employee management solution tailored towards aligning your time management, payroll and salary payments. It launched its operations in Nigeria in 2021.
According to Paul Kimani, the startup is set to launch a payroll engine that can serve customers in additional markets in a bid to stay ahead of their customers’ needs. HE also revealed that the company will also release an API to enable, for instance, accounting firms to be payroll providers.
Apart from providing the basic HR function to its clients, Workpay is adding financial services including linkages to investment accounts, medical and asset insurance and earned-wage access for employees attending to emergencies or bills. It is basically building a marketplace bringing in other players that can serve employers and employees on its platform.
Kimani claims Workpay has experienced great growth in revenue and clientele, with a spurt noted after the COVID slowdown of 2020.
“Since 2021 we have been doubling revenue every year, and the number of our customers — who are nearing 700 as we speak. We also have about $200 million in total payroll value that we are handling for our customers annually,” he said.
