Employment Hero, an automated human resources, payroll and benefits start-up, has raised A$140 Mn  in Series E financing led by Insight Partners. Ben Thompson, CEO, Employment Hero, is delighted at this turn of events, “We always thought Insight Partners would be a great partner.” The deal will allow them to scale into Southeast Asian and Western European markets without worrying about raising capital. Insight Partners is known for investing in tech companies.  

This investment comes less than a year after Employment Hero raised A$45 Mn in Series D funding led by SEEK in March 2021. It has raised its valuation from A$ 250 Mn to A$800 Mn since March 2021 with a record 133% year-on-returning proceeds. 

Going by current numbers, Employment Hero is used by 6,000+ businesses and processed a whopping US$14 Bn in gross wages through the platform. In the last year, Employment Hero has amplified its headcount by 65% and now boasts of a total of 325 full-time staff. 

To get a foot in the door in the global market (beyond Australia), Employment Hero started localizing its platform, products and services for countries like New Zealand, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and Singapore with a secondary focus on Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Employment Hero first takes up employment contracts, company processes, and policies ( including leave and compensation). Only then do they bring in tax, pensions, provident funds (country-wise social security/ retirement benefits). The last step is insurance and mortgages. 

In the wake of the pandemic, it also aided companies and businesses to settle into a distributed workforce model and gradually started an organization named, Professional Employer Organization (PEO). PEO aimed at helping companies worldwide to hire remote workers and to manage it all at the same time. Ben believes that remote work is a competitive advantage because it broadens the available talent pool and helps retain and engage employees. 

Globally, the software or tech segment of human resource management stands at almost US$12 Bn. To put things in perspective, Employment Hero’s current revenue per employee at $130,000 is closely rivalled by ELMO with the latter a mere 20% gross revenue away from besting the former financially.