Co-founder of SeamlessHR, Dr. Emmanuel Okeleji used to sit in for board meetings alongside his father as an eight-year-old child. The board meetings, despite their informal structure, were his earliest introduction to the idea of entrepreneurship.
However, he went into Medicine and graduated from the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ife.
By the end of medical school, Emmanuel Okeleji had gone through a Goldman Sachs investment banking internship and kicked off an incorporated software development company alongside his current co-founder, Deji Lana. They built a software tool for cooperatives which is still in use today.
In 2012, Emmanuel Okeleji started Insidify (Get ‘inside’ Africa + ‘identify’ your human resource needs), a job aggregator platform similar to Jobberman. However, the company wanted to do more on the platform than post job adverts and link employers with qualified employees. It took five years of building out and running Insidify to learn and understand the challenges of the segment.
In 2017, after a series of board meetings and with their founding vision to improve productivity for workforces in Africa, they pivoted. In 2018, they rolled out the first product, an applicant tracking system that was like a continuum for the job site. The tool was to help employers sift through the tons of applications they received and select the appropriate, qualified candidates to fill the roles they wanted to fill.
They called it SeamlessHiring.
Founded in 2018 and described as “Workday for emerging markets”, SeamlessHR is building an enterprise-grade, cloud-based HR platform that helps medium to large-sized companies automate and optimize their entire HR process, from recruitment to retirement.
The startup’s product suite includes a Recruitment Management System, Core HR Management, Performance and Competency Management, Payroll Management, Leave Management, HR Analytics, and several other modules, and SeamlessHR already boasts an impressive list of customers, including Sterling Bank, Wema Bank, Lagos Business School, PwC and KPMG.
From starting with one product, our product suite has now expanded to include a Core HR Management system, Performance and Competency Management, HR Analytics, Leave Management, Payroll Management, Recruitment Management, and other vital modules.
SeamlessHR Funding
In 2019, Seamless HR raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from Tofino Capital to grow the team size, support marketing efforts, and double down on expansion into Anglophone Africa.
In 2020, the Lagos-based HR and payroll tech startup closed a VC-led round of funding to unlock its next phase of growth. The round, the amount of which is undisclosed, was led by the New York-based Lateral Capital and the Lagos-based Consonance Investment Managers, with participation from Enza Capital and Ingressive Capital.
In 2022, SeamlessHR closed a US$10 million Series A funding round led by TLcom Capital and featuring Capria Ventures and existing investors Lateral Frontier Ventures, Enza Capital and Ingressive Capital, and several strategic private investors. The funding will be used to further strengthen SeamlessHR’s position as Africa’s leading cloud HR and payroll platform. It will provide means to grow the team, fuelling expansion across the continent to Southern and East Africa, with South Africa and Kenya as operation hubs respectively.
On 19th January 2025, Seamless HR secured $9 million in a Series-A extension round, led by the Gates Foundation and Helios Digital Ventures. The company plans to use the funds to drive expansion across Africa, potentially including acquisitions.
The funding brings SeamlessHR’s total raised to around $25 million since its inception in 2018.
Growth
SeamlessHR began servicing clients in Kenya in 2021 but officially launched its East African operations in December 2022 at a thought leadership event held in Nairobi, Kenya.
Going forward, SeamlessHR hopes to offer credit and other financial products to customers.
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SOURCES: Disrupt Africa, Seamless HR, TechCabal, The Africa Report
