Workpay has announced its entry into the Nigerian market with target to provide human resource solutions to companies in West Africa.
The Nairobi-based firm currently provides at least 400 companies with tools for managing their human resource, payroll, compliance, and benefits.
“We are not only supporting some of the amazing companies in the continent like Flutterwave, Paystack, and Yoco but also the millions of SMEs in Africa in their growth endeavors. What we are building is an infrastructure to allow SMEs to have the same advantage and tools to build their teams across the continent without breaking their banks,” said Paul Kimani, Workpay Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder.
The firm which is a graduate of Y Combinator and Google for Startups Africa beneficiary of equity-free funding will use Nigeria as its west African headwaters.
“Nigeria is a key market for us, not only in West Africa but throughout Africa. SMEs in this region face similar challenges as their counterparts in East Africa and indeed across emerging markets. We plan to use Nigeria as our gateway to West Africa including Francophone Africa,” Kimani added.
Kimani says Workpay has added new product lines that are in line with the new normal which is remote work.
The platform enables companies to hire, run local payrolls, file taxes, manage compliance and pay salaries in more than 15 currencies across Africa.
“Workpay expanded in Nigeria in the most organic way since it was already serving Lagos-based FinTechs such as Flutterwave and Paystack with their Kenyan operations. Workpay also built its remote team payroll product to address the needs of clients like Yoco that are scaling fast in multiple countries. We are thrilled about Workpay’s new market and product launch and look forward to the next growth milestones,” said Mikael Hajjar from P1 Ventures who is one of the earliest investors in the startup.
According to the firm, the expansion in opens up the market reach for companies around the world looking to hire in Africa legally without the need to set up a local entity, eliminating labour and compliance costs in various countries.
“With its tenacity, nimbleness, and great teamwork, Workpay has already demonstrated significant revenue growth with the expanded customer base and evolution of the business model. We are very excited about Workpay’s expansion to West Africa and launch of the new product lineup, which represent the new chapter of its accelerated growth. As an investor operating in both East and West Africa, we are committed to support its further pan-African expansion,” said Satoshi Shinada, Kepple Africa Ventures General Partner.
“In the next few months we will be progressively growing the team in Nigeria in various roles in business, customer support, product and engineering,” Paul said
