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SmartWage, a South African innovative HR and communications technology startup, announced that it has raised $2 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round.
According to the company in a statement, the funding was “raised to support SmartWage’s vision of transforming Africa’s workforce through digital inclusion, particularly for frontline employees like cashiers, restaurant staff, security personnel, and healthcare workers.”
Founded in 2020 by Simon Ellis and Caroline van der Merwe, Smartwe provides enterprises a simple yet effective way to digitise their most time-consuming HR processes, helping them save time and money in order to focus on what matters most – people. It gives employees without email the ability to receive company-wide communication, access their payslips, request leave and get access to financial wellness products, all via WhatsApp.
The seed funding was accessed via several influential investors. One of those investors is Idris Bello, founding partner of LoftyInc Capital, a pan-African VC fund headquartered in Nigeria, and an early investor in Flutterwave and Andela, two of Africa’s tech unicorns. Bello said he was excited by the scalability of the SmartWage product set and the impact it could have, in both Africa and beyond the continent.
According to Idris Bello on the investment, “The team at SmartWage are innovators – they’re building more than just an earned wage access product, and have recognised that in order to make a tangible impact on employers, they need to build a powerful way for employers to engage with their workforce. We are excited to partner with Simon, Caroline and the powerful team they’ve assembled to support SmartWage’s mission to drive digital inclusion across Africa”.
Other investors include Creator Collective Capital, Penrose Capital, along with angels from Naspers, Dimension Data, Investec, and Standard Bank. SmartWage plans to deploy the capital to expand its product and technology team and double down on solving employers’ biggest problems.
SmartWage clients include companies that employ frontline employees, typically in retail, quick service restaurants (QSR), manufacturing, construction, and hospitality. They have grown their monthly active user base 14x in the past 12 months, and now work with brands such as Edgars, KFC, Debonairs, Seattle Coffee, Truda and Twizza
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