Afrigather 
Pade, a startup that helps companies handle their HR features, brought about a stir on X (previously Twitter) when it shared that it paid ₦11 billion ($12 million) in salaries for its shoppers in 2023. With over 100 companies on its folks operations platform and over 6,500 workers, the mathematics of it really works out to a median wage of ₦240,000 throughout all the businesses it handles payroll for. That determine is eight occasions Nigeria’s minimal wage.
Another numbers caught the attention, like how 60% of workers earn lower than ₦150,000 and 25% earn greater than ₦250,000 monthly.
Launched in 2022, Pade’s development has been fast. The ₦11.473 billion in salaries it paid to workers in 2023 was a 41.1% improve from its 2022 determine of ₦7.245 billion.
The third and fourth quarters drove a lot of that development, coinciding with when Pade signed Flutterwave, the Nigerian cost behemoth, as a key consumer. Touchdown Flutterwave’s enterprise opened the door to different main gamers. Its different shoppers embody Famasi, Risevest, Max, and Dantata.
For the corporate’s leaders, development has been a operate of alternative assembly preparation.
“We’ve got spent the final two years tweaking our product to construct the suitable instruments firms must handle their workers,” mentioned Seye Bandele, founder and CEO. “We invested considerably in bolstering model consciousness, refining our gross sales processes, cultivating genuine relationships with our viewers,” Ore Badmus, Pade’s advertising lead, added.
Pade’s onboarding and payroll platform helps HR professionals automate repetitive administrative duties. Seye Bandele and Lekan Omotosho, Pade’s CTO, who beforehand labored within the HR departments of enormous FMCGs, determined to construct the tech for different companies to hold out HR features.
Pade’s payroll software program resolution, which makes use of a subscription mannequin, is the corporate’s largest income driver. The startup additionally makes cash from paying taxes and pensions for its shoppers, and in 2023, it processed ₦76 million in taxes and ₦28 million pensions.
In 2023, it launched Earned Wage Entry (EWA), a function that permits workers to attract an advance from their salaries earlier than payday. It paid out ₦3 million in EWA final yr, for which it charged withdrawal charges of 1-3%.
Providing the EWA function to workers on its shoppers’ payroll got here with its bag of challenges. “Early on, establishing clear communication channels with workers was essential,” admitted Ore Badmus, Pade’s advertising lead.
Pade’s future strikes in worker empowerment
The startup has some attention-grabbing merchandise within the works, together with a function that lets workers save and make investments a portion of their salaries. Additionally it is constructing a no-code device HR consultants and small enterprise house owners who want entry to payroll providers.
Pade raised a $500,000 pre-seed spherical in 2023 and is in talks for a brand new funding spherical. It has obtained help from the Microsoft-backed FAST startup accelerator program, which chosen the startup for its first cohort in collaboration with Flapmax. Final yr, the startup additionally received into Professional Dojo, a world early-stage startup accelerator that has invested in African startups similar to Eden Life, Commerce Lenda, VipLink, Aladdin, and others.
Bandele says the startup is inching towards profitability and is focusing on $1 million in income for 2024. The startup additionally has plans to develop into an East African market within the close to future.
