palm.hr, a Saudi Arabian HRTech platform, recently announced that it has closed a $5 million pre-Series A round co-led by Europe-based VC Speedinvest and RAED Ventures. MENA-focused VC firm Wamda Capital also participated in the capital raised. The company plans to invest the new funding in scaling up its product offering and accelerating its regional expansion.
Co-founded by Richard Schrems, Christoph Czichna and Dragan Nikolic in 2019, palm.hr aims to deliver a streamlined and intuitive work experience for teams of all sizes in the Mena region. The platform handles everything from onboarding, time and vacation tracking, payroll and offboarding, all fully compliant with local standards and regulations. It is designed to be highly configurable, meeting local labour laws and employment regulations in different regional markets. The startup also includes features for employee engagement, insurance, documentation and more. For businesses in the region with global operations, Palm.hr has also built a multi-currency feature to support international payment requirements.
palm. hr’s mission is to provide state-of-the-art, engaging & intuitive people technology to organizations across the Kingdom. The company believes great software should be more than just available and affordable for large corporations & enterprises.
Speaking about the company, Co-founder & CEO of palm.hr, Richard Schrems, said:
The MENA region is transforming at an incredible pace, and businesses recognize the need to be empowered by technology and create meaningful workplace experiences. That is why we built Palm.hr, to equip HR professionals with the tools they need to succeed. With the backing of our investors, we are excited to kick off our next stage of growth and play a role in contributing to the future of the region’s economy.
A fully cloud-based service with mobile-first functionality, the firm comprehensively addresses the needs of large and small businesses, enabling the automation of HR processes and driving employee engagement with co-workers to unlock their full potential.
Commenting on the funding, Partner of Speedinvest, Philip Specht, said:
As EU-based investors, we have seen how companies such as Personio and Factorial are creating billion-dollar outcomes in the HR space. With a similar but localized approach, we believe that Palm HR is poised to become the leading player in the MENA region and the wider Arab world. The company has an outstanding team, a superior value proposition in terms of features, integrations and UX, and strong customer love. We are thrilled to back Palm HR, reflecting our excitement about the wider startup ecosystem in MENA.
palm.hr also features integrations with government services such as Mudad for digital payroll and compliance mandated by the Ministry of Labor in KSA; The General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI), and Muqeem, the foreign employees’ data platform, in addition to providing advisory services to clients as required.
Founding Partner of Raed Ventures, Tala Alasmari, added:
As the world’s fastest-growing major economy, Saudi Arabia’s businesses recognize the benefits of embedding innovative technology within their operations to unlock performance, speed and scale. We are proud to back Palm.hr, a Saudi-first success story creating impact across borders and playing a transformative role in the future of work.
In 2021, Palm.hr had raised an undisclosed amount in a bridge funding round led by Nama Ventures, with participation from other prominent angel investors from Saudi Arabia.
