Employment Hero Announces £131M Series F Round and UK as European HQ

• Employment Hero experiences rapid growth as it evolves from an HR and payroll software platform to a fully-autonomous solution for SMEs to recruit, pay and manage talent seamlessly 
• The round, led by leading global growth fund TCV, means the Australian-born business is now approaching a valuation of £1 billion
• The company chooses the UK as its European headquarters, plans to further expand its UK presence to a team of 180 within 12 months, to better serve its growing base of 20,000 UK SMEs and their 200,000 employees 
• Over 300,000 global SMEs and 3 million of their employees now operate on Employment Hero 

Employment Hero, one of the world’s largest employment management platforms, has announced a Series F growth round of £131 million to fuel its rapid global expansion, following in the footsteps of Atlassian, Xero and Canva.

The funding* (subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval) follows the company’s 2022 Series E and takes the total amount of capital it has raised to over £325 million, funding it has used to develop an entire ecosystem of products and services through its all-in-one platform that make employment significantly better and easier for both employers and employees. 

Through continued vertical integration, Employment Hero has built an all-in-one platform to recruit, onboard, pay and manage talent seamlessly and compliantly. This gives business owners and managers peace of mind and frees up their time to focus on growing their businesses.

For employees, the Employment Hero super-app, ‘Swag’, is a real-time control centre, empowering them to manage their work and financial lives efficiently and intelligently. The app provides a range of benefits that help save members thousands of pounds each year, a highly relevant solution given the global inflation and cost-of-living squeeze. 

This fundraise, led by global growth fund TCV, enables the company to make a substantial investment in the UK, which it recently chose as its European headquarters. Over the next 12 months it will further expand its local presence to a team of 180 to help grow and support the 20,000 UK SMEs it already works with. These SMEs, which span sectors including hospitality, construction, care, manufacturing, and professional services, are the engine room of the UK economy. 

After a successful launch in Australia, the company is also set to expedite its UK rollout of SmartMatch – its AI-driven recruitment solution – which will help SMEs to access and recruit talent on an automated basis, saving significant time and money and enabling them to compete more effectively with large corporations. 

For founders Ben Thompson and Dave Tong, this fundraise is a further endorsement of their vision to create the world’s preeminent employment infrastructure and community – currently a fragmented industry worth around $2 trillion annually. 

“Whilst we were not actively seeking funding, our growth story has meant that we have received significant inbound investor interest – this has given us incredible confidence in our vision and allowed us to opportunistically boost our balance sheet, even at a time when the funding environment has been tight. TCV is a leading technology investor with an enviable track-record backing many of the world’s most ubiquitous digital platforms like Airbnb and Spotify, so we are very excited to welcome them aboard as we do the same for employment.” said Ben Thompson, CEO & Founder of Employment Hero. 

“Within 12 months, Employment Hero will transcend the traditional confines of HR and Payroll. We will open doors to a world where talent flows like water through a pipe, right to your doorstep. That’s the future we’re building. Businesses can seamlessly plug into our unparalleled reservoir of talent, with automatic compliance and compensation mechanisms. No more time or hassle growing your business. We’re on a trajectory to become the world’s largest centralised payroll and recruitment hub, reaching all markets with our highly automated infrastructure. Our sights are set on becoming a $50 billion plus business, so our financial aspirations match the scale of our global vision,” continues Thompson.

Minister for Investment Lord Dominic Johnson said: “The UK is one of the best places in the world to invest, especially in our thriving tech sector which is only the third in the world to be valued at $1 trillion. Employment Hero’s investment is testament to that, and it echoes the hugely positive sentiment I have seen from investors across the Asia Pacific region – from Korea and Japan to Malaysia and Australia – just months after the UK agreed to join CPTPP. This huge vote of confidence also comes just weeks before our Global Investment Summit, where we will be showcasing the very best innovation in the UK to the world’s leading CEOs and investors.”

“Employment Hero is a best-in-class HRIS platform, which is differentiated in offering integrated HR and payroll functionality across multiple geographies.” added Alexander Wortmann, Partner at TCV. “By connecting businesses to a vast pool of talent, Employment Hero is now reimagining recruitment and payroll for the modern age. We look forward to partnering with Employment Hero’s talented team to execute on this exciting growth trajectory and global expansion.”

Employment Hero’s earlier backers Insight Partners, AirTree, Seek Investments and OneVentures all participated in this raise.