Say hello to these newly funded HR Suites

When I started to research the latest HR Suites, I came across so many, that I couldn’t interview them all. Despite the high number, every solution is unique in focus and design. What they have in common is that their founders intend to remove friction in HR, out of a frustration with the current situation. And while they usually focus on signing SMB clients first, these solutions are every bit as interesting for larger companies.

All of them are built on a robust architecture, and use a hyperscaler for hosting. The solutions are scalable by design and can grow when their customer base expands. What these founders lack in experience serving large companies, they make up for in enthusiasm. The way they design the end user experience often outperforms the experience offered by established vendors with large UX teams (which might be the issue). The same can be said about the HR processes, which are designed to support a mobile, diverse and global workforce.

The list contains a mix of HR solutions focused on a single country, and solutions that aspire to serve the global workforce in as many countries as possible. The majority of country focused vendors include a native payroll. The multi-country solutions offer integrations and APIs to connect to 3rd party in-country payroll vendors. Note that all of them can ramp up in a matter of days or weeks, not months, as long as you follow their onboarding process.

Most of these entrepreneurs have set their eyes on moving up from SMB to selling to global enterprises. In reality, it will take time before they can confidently serve enterprise clients: these companies have a few dozen to a few hundred employees, and serving an enterprise client can easily overwhelm them. They will find themselves outmatched by the number of people, meetings and requests an enterprise can throw at them.

If you’re an enterprise buyer, you should include them in your RFP process. You gain a lot of process and user experience sophistication by using a young company, but it’s in your interest to keep them focused on delivering innovation, not submitting to your operations. Make sure your demands are in line with their capabilities and they understand what’s coming once they sign with you.

So when you’re looking for a new way to manage your workforce, these are the solutions you should explore. The list is by no means complete, it provides a snapshot of companies covering the globe for a broad overview. The Suites are listed in alphabetical order. All of these companies had a recent funding round – that’s how they ended up in the list. And if I missed one (I surely did), send me note and I’ll add it.

BrioHR

BrioHR is an all-in-one HR Platform that includes onboarding, recruitment, leave, payroll (Malaysia and Singapore), performance management, and core HR. The Brio founders realized that HR challenges are shared across industries and geographies, but companies do not have the right tools to drive employee engagement and maximize productivity.They set out to digitize admin & paperwork while delivering a great end user experience supported by real-time reporting and analytics. The company just closed a $1.3M funding round to extend their platform.Their offices are located in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Paris, serving 1000+ clients in Europe and Southeast Asia.

Darwinbox

Darwinbox is an End-to-End HR Suite that includes core HR, time & attendance, payroll, recruitment, onboarding, performance management etc. The suite also comes with Helpdesk functionality. The founders wanted to build technology that enables organizations to engage, empower and ultimately unleash the highest potential of their people. They believe Asian enterprises deserve a tailor-built solution that understands their unique and diverse context which most legacy solutions fail to address. They recently raised $15M in funding. The company has offices in India, Singapore and Indonesia and predominantly serves clients headquartered in Asia.

Employment Hero

Employment Hero offers an integrated, automated platform to manage HR, payroll, performance, learning, recognition and benefits for SMBs. The team behind Employment Hero team consists of employment lawyers, HR specialists, payroll officers and financial analysts and created the Suite to outperform their experiences with other solutions. The founders recently raised $35M to fund global expansion. Originally focused on Australia, during the pandemic they instituted Global Teams to connect SMBs around the world with the best talent, and launched in New Zealand, the U.K., Malaysia and Singapore. The funding will be used to enter new Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. The company is headquartered in Australia.

Factorial

Factorial is a full-fledged HR Suite that includes core HR, time & attendance, payroll, onboarding, talent, performance and expenses. The company also offers HR support like document management, KPI’s and reporting and automation/integration functionality. The founders started Factorial out of frustration with the lack of solutions to fully develop talent and help solve the problems of a mid-sized company globally. Factorial raised $16.5M to fund international expansion in key international markets throughout Europe and in the Americas. At present, they support businesses in more than 40 countries. The company is based in Spain.

HiBob

Hibob is on a mission to modernize HR technology. bob, their platform, is a “mission-critical” people management platform built for the way people work today. The company characterizes Bob as a system of engagement, rather than a system of record. Using Bob, HR can streamline core HR processes, talent, time management, and compensation management. The platform also helps HR drive social engagement, and collaboration and includes feedback functionality. Hibob closed a $70M round to further expansion across the U.S., Europe and Asia. The company was founded in Israel, and has offices in Tel Aviv, New York and London.

Humaans

Humaans is one of the youngest companies on the list. Their philosophy is a bit different: they assume that a company will use an HR stack consisting of point solutions as opposed to an all-in-one HR system. Humaan offers an employee management platform designed to turn complex processes like employee onboarding, offboarding, and compensation management into simple workflows by integrating with other point solutions, such as Gsuite, Slack, Docusign, and Greenhouse. Humaans automates processes with fast workflows (think IFTTT or Zapier). The company raised $5M to build out their solution. Humaan serves customers in 21 countries across Europe and the US that employ people across 54 countries. They are headquartered in London.

Humi

Humi is an all-in-one HR, payroll and benefits and insurance solution for Canada. The product includes other features like onboarding, performance, time off and training. Contrary to the other vendors in this overview, Humi has made the decision to be hyper-focused on the Canadian market and support employers and employees with built-in product features that reflect the nuances of building and employing people within Canada. Humi’s product consistently remains up-to-date with provincial government employment regulations while also offering education for employers on these updates. Humi closed a $15M series A round to further develop the solution and help meet growing demand. The company is based in Toronto.

Kenjo

Berlin-based Kenjo provides a full-service HR and culture platform that automates admin work and enables employees to take ownership of their professional development by providing a single-view access to the most important information that an employee needs. The company believes that employees should be able to self-develop and provides them with the tools. The suite includes core HR, Time, onboarding, performance, etc. Kenjo raised $5.1M last year and has offices in Germany and Spain.

Papaya Global

Even though Papaya Global started as a global payroll solution, last year they acquired HR Platform Mensch, and they’re now rolling out new HR features to their client base, rebranding themselves as People & Pay Platform. They deliver features to Hire, Onboard and Manage people. The company closed a $100M funding round, getting their valuation to $1B and giving them Unicorn status. Their focus is on companies with a multi-country workforce, who want to automate HR and outsource payroll and payments. They also provide contractor and EoR services. Papaya Global serves 140 countries and is headquartered in Israel. They have offices in the US, UK, China, Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Payfit

Payfit offers a cloud-based payroll and employee management solution designed specifically for startups and SMEs. On the day I published this article, Payfit secured €90M to extend their company. They started out as a payroll solution, and the new funding is expected to fuel the continued growth and development of the company’s end-to-end HR solution, as well as further expansion into Europe. Payfit is especially focused on enabling automation and workflows, and lets you automate as many steps as possible. The company is headquartered in France, with offices in Spain, Germany and the UK.

Personio

Personio serves small- and medium-sized businesses with an all-in-one HR platform covering recruiting and onboarding, absence tracking, performance and feedback. While you can prepare payroll within the suite, it doesn’t include a calculation engine so you’ll need a 3rd party for that. The company raised $125M and has Unicorn status based on a valuation of $1.7GB. They have around 3000 customers. Personio is headquarted in Germany, and expanding services to other countries in Europe, having established offices in England, Ireland and Spain.

Rippling

Rippling offers a platform to manage all aspects of employee data, combing HR & IT management. It offers core HR, payroll, benefits and performance through to app and device management. It’s a unique combination that you don’t usually find in an HR Suite, but it does make sense to focus on holistic employee service delivery. Rippling also offers a PEO service and targets the <1000 employee range in the United States. The company has offices in the US and India. Rippling raised $145M to further R&D and internal product development.

Workpay

Workpay builds human resources and payroll solutions for African SMB’s. It allows clients to keep employee records and measure productivity. It also supports OKRs and scorecards. The company’s time tracking and salary disbursement tools help African businesses save money and time by eliminating ghost workers from their payroll and inefficiencies associated with cash payments. Employees can access advances and salary loans, and Workpay includes a (pre-)financing facility for clients to enable them to pay their employees on time without burdening their cash flow. The Workpay team raised $2.1M which will give them the opportunity to scale and expand to enterprise clients across East Africa. The company is headquartered in Kenya.

Zimyo

Zimyo is an all-in-one HR software and payroll platform that includes performance, engagement and benefits for small and medium sized business focused on India. It differentiates its solution by offering dynamic and customizable workflows on top of its core solution. Zimyo aspires to incorporate fintech innovations to its SaaS platform and build a financial support ecosystem. Zimyo raised $1.5M and plans to use the seed funding to strengthen the team and technology to expand its business. The company is headquartered in India.