Nigerian HR-Tech company, Pade has secured $500,000 pre-seed in a round attended by Zrosk IML, Zedcrest Capital, Microtraction, Expert Dojo, and Resilience 17, with participation from several angel investors.
The startup will utilize the funding expansion, growth and product development.
“This latest round of funding marks a pivotal moment for the company, and Pade HCM intends to use the funds to change the HR industry in Africa. The new funding will also enable the company to expand its operations and invest in product development, helping Africa catch up to the new world of work,” a statement from the company read.
A Look At What The Startup Does
Seye Bandele, a former marketing lead at Yudala and Konga, and Lekan Omotosho, a former consultant to the FCT and state governments in Nigeria, co-founded Pade HCM, a SaaS startup with the purpose of building the easiest and most efficient people operations platform, at the end of 2020.
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“Our goal is to help businesses become more efficient, freeing up their time to focus on strategic work,” Pade CEO Bandele, said. “Professionals should not spend valuable time handling HR tasks that can be automated with little human interaction.”
Pade HCM has helped over 100 African businesses become more efficient and profitable since its inception by removing tedious HR activities from their calendars. The Nigerian HRTech firm processed 2.67 billion ($6.3 million) in payroll in 2022 and maintained over 10,000 employee profiles.
The startup claimed ‘early success’ by automating and streamlining HR operations, bootstrapping its expansion to $100,000 ARR by the end of 2022.
“Our software helps organizations with onboarding, HRIS, payroll, compliance, performance management, asset management, disciplinary actions, and exit processes, providing reliable HR management solutions in all areas,” Bandele added.
According to the statement, Pade HCM was formed with the understanding that Africa offers the greatest possibility for workforce growth globally. Africa has a young and quickly rising population, but its economic growth and development have lagged behind that of other parts of the world.
This is evident in the region’s low productivity indices across various industries and sectors. A lack of investment in human capital creates a difficult environment for businesses and entrepreneurs, necessitating Africa’s prioritisation of investment in its people and the creation of an enabling environment for businesses.
“Our key focus is to deliver Africa into profitability. Africa, despite being the youngest and fastest growing population on the globe has the lowest productivity metrics anywhere in the world,” Pade HCM’s mission statement, reads.
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African HR companies are embracing technology to fulfil the particular HR demands of organisations in the region and stay ahead of the competition in an increasingly competitive business environment, following in the footsteps of current HR companies throughout the world such as GustoHQ, Deel, and DayForce.
HRTech is quickly expanding in African countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda. Previously, only large firms such as FMCGs and banks focused on digitising HR operations and employee engagement approaches. However, in recent years, the awareness and benefits of employing HR technology to improve corporate productivity have expanded significantly in the continent’s $24 billion MSME industry.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard