Nigerian HR‑tech startup PaidHR has officially closed a $1.8 million seed funding round, led by Accion Venture Lab and joined by returning investors Zrosk, Chui Ventures, and Zedcrest Capital.
Founded in 2020 by Seye Bandele and Lekan Omotosho, PaidHR is on a mission to simplify payroll, HR, compliance, and financial wellbeing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Africa.
PaidHR offers an all-in-one platform that manages payroll automation, HRIS (Human Resource Information Systems), Compliance and performance tracking, Earned Wage Access (EWA), and Cross-border payroll in 49 currencies via integrated employee wallets that support local and USD savings.
In 2024 alone, PaidHR processed over ₦29 billion (≈ $18 million) in salaries and onboarded more than 20,000 employees from over 200 businesses in sectors like logistics, manufacturing, retail, and finance.
Accion Venture Lab, known for backing high-impact fintech startups globally, led the round. Amee Parbhoo, Managing Partner, described PaidHR’s platform as a meaningful step toward financial inclusion, emphasizing its ability to embed financial tools like EWA and USD savings into HR systems. Returning investors Zrosk, Chui Ventures, and Zedcrest Capital reinforced trust in PaidHR by participating again in this oversubscribed round.
PaidHR plans to invest this new capital in several key areas such as enhancing user experience and launching advanced features in HR analytics, compliance automation, and employee financial wellness tools, adding capacity to manage growing client demand across existing and new markets, and building presence further in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and beyond to serve SME and enterprise clients with consistent HR infrastructure and multi-currency payroll support.
CEO Seye Bandele reflected on the milestone:
“We are building HR management for the African context… this funding allows us to scale our vision, expand our reach, and deliver even more value to our clients.”
He emphasized PaidHR’s role in democratizing enterprise-grade HR tools for SMEs, enabling them to manage teams efficiently and promote employee financial wellbeing.
PaidHR sits at the intersection of HR technology and financial inclusion on the African continent. By automating compliance, payroll, and performance workflows while offering financial services like wage access and multi-currency wallets, the platform enables SMEs to operate more efficiently and employees to achieve greater economic resilience.
As businesses increasingly expand regionally, PaidHR positions itself as a scalable solution to tackle HR friction and wage instability across Africa—ushering a new generation of digitally empowered workplaces.
About PaidHR: A Lagos-based HR-tech platform providing SMEs in multiple African markets with tools for payroll, HR management, and financial wellness—built for the realities of cross-border operations.
About Accion Venture Lab: The seed-stage investment arm of Accion International, specializing in fintech ventures that promote financial inclusion in underserved markets.
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