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need for hour technical school result in Africa is growing , and Senegal’sSociumis out to tap the opportunity in French - speaking countries on the continent .
Since 2021 , Socium has build HR solutions that point users within the 21 land of Francophone Africa and plans to continue narrowing its focus on the region , where it is enjoying first - mover vantage .
Socium co - founderSamba Lo(CEO ) revealed these plans to TechCrunch and told us the startup has also provoke $ 5 million seed funding to fuel its increase plan in the region .
“ So for us , deploy within Francophone Africa is very interesting . … Because we have the same economical community of interests , we have very close regulating , we have the same currency ; in addition , the market place for HR software is very Brobdingnagian . So for these reason , we choose to stay in Francophone Africa , because , I think we have so much to do here , ” say Lo , who co - founded the inauguration withSerigne Seye .
Socium ’s answer enables its clients to inscribe , pay , and do endowment . However , that was never what the duet set out to bid when they first came together in 2021 .
ab initio , Lo said , they begin out as a enlisting web site to enable caller to find talent and for people to find job . Then they discovered that the HR world was huge .
“ Our customers started to necessitate us if we have some answer for paysheet , other result for time direction , some solution for performance management . And you know , we decided to establish a spherical HR political platform to help 60 minutes to manage all their processes , ” enunciate Lo .
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That is how in 2023 they started building a answer that can “ work everywhere from Morocco to Cameroon to Congo , ” observe some of the countries the inauguration plan to expand into .
For instance , the company has build a payroll engine that takes into account complexness of payroll calculations in the region . This , he says , activate the startup to launch in new countries within two weeks , which is faster than foreign - found solutions .
Socium ’s root automates mundane tasks , which minify human resource and payroll work load , and use AI to , for representative , well score and mate CVs to Book of Job offers and to aid in write occupation descriptions . This enables 60 minutes managers to focus on more important roles such as managing and supporting teams to meet their goal .
“ Focus on people means focus on performance , their evaluation and competency and calling path for each somebody . And for this understanding , our main nidus is to continue to help them to work , to manage their casual labor more easily and to be able to be rivet on the most of import part of the HR . And I remember the most of import part for HR is weighted to people inside the company , ” enounce Lo .
As it scales , the inauguration is also looking to integrate with tax agencies to automate tax and regulatory filings for companies , alleviating more headache for troupe .
Lo first connected with Seye at École Polytechnique . After graduating , Lo shortly worked as a data scientist before switching to investment funds banking and joining Skeat , a French startup . This waken his entrepreneurial spirit .
“ I bring together them when they had only six months of hard cash depart . And so that was very complicated , but for me , that was the best shift of my life , because it aid me to divulge entrepreneurship , it helped me to break inauguration , and it also help me to discover SaaS. … During Covid , I had thick reflection about how can I be utilitarian to my community and for me , it was obvious that I have to establish something related to SaaS in Africa , ” say Lo .
To date , the Socium says it has over 100 fighting clients , cutting across 10 industries and 15 country , and becomes one of the few HR techs in Africa that have elevate funding in recent times . WorkPay , a Kenyan inauguration that is said to be serve more than 1,000 customers across 20 African countries , recently closed a $ 5 million Series A round led byNorrsken22 .
Socium ’s seed round was direct byBreega , while Partech , Orange Ventures , Chui Ventures , Sonatel , Outlierz , Super Capital , Evolem , Techmind , and a number of holy man investor also participated . Raisers Partners were financial advisers .
update to meditate the correct lead investor in competitor ’s Series A round .
