This archive report was first published on 2 November 2021.
On November 2, 2021, WorkPay, a Nairobi-based company that provides Human Resource, payroll, compliance, and benefits tools to over 400 businesses, announced its expansion to Nigeria. The West African country will serve as the company's hub for the region.
WorkPay, a graduate of the Y-Combinator and Google for Startups Africa, was recently selected among 50 African companies to receive equity-free funding and support from Google's Black Founders Fund in Africa.
The company has added new product lines to cater to the 'new normal' of remote work. Using the WorkPay platform, companies can now hire, run local payrolls, file taxes, manage compliance, and pay salaries in more than 15 currencies across Africa.
According to CEO/Co-founder Paul Kimani, 'We are not only supporting some of the amazing companies in the continent like Flutterwave, Paystack, and Yoco but also the millions of SMEs in Africa in their growth endeavours. What we are building is an infrastructure to allow SMEs to have the same advantage and tools to build their teams across the continent without breaking their banks.'
WorkPay plans to use Nigeria as its gateway to West Africa, including Francophone Africa. 'Nigeria is a key market for us, not only in West Africa but throughout Africa. SMEs in this region face similar challenges as their counterparts in East Africa and indeed across emerging markets,' Paul added.
Early investor Mikael Hajjar from P1 Ventures expressed excitement about WorkPay's new market and product launch, saying, 'Workpay expanded in Nigeria in the most organic way since it was already serving Lagos-based FinTechs such as Flutterwave and Paystack with their Kenyan operations.'
WorkPay's expansion opens up the market reach to companies around the world looking to hire in Africa legally without the need to set up a local entity. The company takes care of labour and compliance laws across various countries.
