PayrollHero nabs $1m to expand its cloud-based payroll platform in Southeast Asia

Philippines and Canada-based PayrollHero has announced completion of a CAD$1 million (roughly US$1 million) seed round of funding as it prepares to expand its engineering team and bring on new clients for its cloud-based payroll solution.

The startup attracted several noteworthy participating investors for the round, including 500Startups, LX Ventures, The Futura Corporation, 8capita Partners, Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes, Clarity CEO Dan Martell, Benjamin Joffe and MAKE Technologies founder Christian Cotichini.

PayrollHero uses a mobile and Web app to help companies manage employee time and payroll. Workers can use the app to clock in and out by photo and GPS. Michael Stephenson and Stephen Jagger founded the company because they were having trouble finding a proper payroll platform for their outsourcing company in the Philippines.

The startup’s full payroll solution has rolled out to just the Philippines first, but it is planning to expand across Southeast Asia soon. Its attendance app has users in Canada, USA, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and India.

“PayrollHero makes payroll sexy, and they make lots of money doing it!  It’s one of those few cloud-based services that every business, from SMB’s to large enterprises, can and should use to increase productivity and save costs,” 500Startups Venture Partner George Kellerman said.

While it’s hard for me to imagine what a sexed-up payroll would look like, PayrollHero does seem poised to innovate on a normally very boring, but necessary, part of the workplace. The efforts the startup is taking to add a personal approach to the task make for a interesting solution. Here’s hoping it can use the new funding to save the (pay)day.

Image credit: Brand X Pictures