SeamlessHR sets up Nairobi base with an eye for East African market

By Phyllis MUCHOKI

Nigeria’s Tech startup SeamlessHR has launched its offices in the Kenyan market, choosing Nairobi as its East African Hub.

SeamlessHR is an end-to-end HR and Payroll technology focused on helping businesses in emerging markets increase their productivity by deploying well-designed, world-class technology solutions.

SeamlessHR Co-founder and CEO, Emmanuel Okeleji says the Kenya office will serve the entire East African region as it sets its eyes on Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo as well as Ethiopia.

The move comes after the firm raised $10 million in Series A funding for its next phase of growth and regional expansion. The company says the funding has further strengthened its position as “Africa’s leading cloud HR and payroll platform’ and is now activating its plans for the East African regional markets.

“Kenya is very tech-forward and is punching above its weight in tech and we want to leverage that. There is huge demand for business automation in the continent, hence our expansion drive. Our next stop is South Africa, where we are opening an office in the first quarter of 2023,” Okeleji said.

Despite the demand, Okeleji notes that Kenyan companies are still handling most HR practices manually despite the world shift to digitisation.

“Traditional, manual payroll processing has a high threshold for error which increases employee stress and reduces morale. We have seen these errors especially in payroll due to the repetitive tasks required when manually inputting payroll information. The accuracy of automated processes can be up to 99.9 percent which greatly benefits your business,” he added.

Latest report by Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA) shows that 7.4 million SMEs in Kenya, are struggling to manage human resources.

“SeamlessHR is set to address the needs of Kenyan enterprises in ways that global players cannot because of its unique customer-centric SaaS design approach.

We are building software solutions to optimise HR now; in the future, we will grow to offer other business solutions beyond HR.

We are excited that we are beating global players in our local market and continue to position SeamlessHR into a global SaaS company,” explained Seun Obatuye, Chief Operations officer at SeamlessHR.

SeamlessHR began servicing clients in Kenya in 2021, and with this formal launch has established its position as a top line service provider in the East African economic capital, offering its product suites including an HR management system, performance and competency management, HR analytics, leave management, payroll management and recruitment management.