Demand for HR technology solutions is growing in Africa, and Senegal's Socium is looking to capitalize on opportunities in the continent's French-speaking countries.
Since 2021, Socium has been building HR solutions for users in 21 French-speaking African countries and plans to continue to focus on regions where it enjoys first-mover advantages.
Socium co-founder Samba Lo (CEO) revealed these plans to TechCrunch, saying the startup has also raised $5 million in seed funding to fuel its growth plans in the region.
“So, for us, developments in Francophone Africa are very interesting because we have the same economic community, we have very tight regulation, we have the same currency. , the market for HR software is huge. For these reasons, we want to stay in Francophone Africa, because we think there is a lot to do here.” said Lo, who co-founded the startup.
Socium's solutions enable clients to hire, pay, and manage talent. But that was never what they set out to offer when they first teamed up in 2021.
Lo said it started out as a recruitment site for companies to find talent and help people find jobs. Then I realized that the world of HR is vast.
“Our customers started asking us if we had solutions for payroll, other solutions for time management, other solutions for performance management. We decided to build a global HR platform to help us manage the process,” said Lo.
So they set out to build a solution in 2023 that could be used “everywhere from Morocco to Cameroon to Congo,” he said, referring to some of the countries the startup plans to expand into.
For example, the company built a payroll engine that takes into account the complexity of payroll in the region. This allows startups to launch in a new country within two weeks, which is faster than foreign-based solutions, he says.
Socium's solutions automate routine tasks and reduce HR and payroll workloads. AI can also be used to easily score resumes and match them to job postings, for example, or to help write job descriptions. This frees up HR managers to focus on more important roles such as managing and supporting their teams to achieve their goals.
“Focusing on people means focusing on each individual's performance, recognition, abilities, and career path. Therefore, our main focus is to ensure that our employees are happy to work and that their daily work “And I think the most important part of HR is focusing on the people within the company.” he said.
As it scales, the startup is also looking to integrate with tax authorities to automate corporate tax and regulatory filings, easing additional headaches for businesses.
Law first connected with Sayet at the École Polytechnique. After graduating, Lo worked briefly as a data scientist before switching to investment banking and joining French startup Skeat. This awakened his entrepreneurial spirit.
“I joined them when they only had six months of funding left. It was very complicated, but for me, it was the best switch in my life, because it was the beginning of discovering entrepreneurship. It helped me do it, it helped me discover startups, it helped me discover SaaS… During the coronavirus, I was thinking deeply about how I can be of service to the community and to myself. After careful consideration, we decided to introduce SaaS in Africa. It was clear that we had to launch something related to ,” Lo said.
Socium says it has over 100 active customers to date across 10 industries and 15 countries, making it one of the few HR technology companies in Africa to have recently raised funding. Kenyan startup WorkPay, which says it serves more than 1,000 customers in 20 African countries, recently closed a $5 million Series A round led by Visa.
Socium's seed round was led by Breega, with participation from Partec, Orange Ventures, Chui Ventures, Sonatel, Outlierz, Super Capital, Evolem, Techmind and a number of angel investors, with Raisers Partners serving as financial advisor.