Employee Management Fintech Startup SalaryBox Raises $4 Mn In Funding

Fintech startup SalaryBox has raised $4 Mn in seed funding from Y-Combinator, AME Cloud Ventures, Soma Capital and 2AM Ventures. Other angel and seed investors including Gokul Rajaram (Doordash), Sriram Krishnan (Tinder and Spotify), and Anand Chandrasekaran (Facebook) also participated in the round. 

Founded in May 2020 by Nikhil Goel and Peeyush Goyal, SalaryBox is a mobile app-based employee management solution that helps small businesses manage staff attendance and payroll processes for blue-collar workers. 

It has grown to manage payroll for over 1 million employees on its app. The startup further aims to scale up its user base to more than 10 million employees by the end of next year

SalaryBox had raised pre-seed funding in May 2021 from GSF Accelerator and individual investors such as Alok Mittal (Indifi), Amit Ranjan (SlideShare, Sumit Jain (CommonFloor), Gaurav Kapur (Oaktree Sports) and Surjendu Kuila (Zopper). It will utilise the freshly raised capital to grow its team, build new products and features and expand its user base.

“We are excited to see such a strong validation from both of our clients and investors alike, towards our mission to enable financial inclusion for India’s 300 million-plus blue-collar workforce. SalaryBox will help these workers open their first salary account, while simultaneously making it much easier for small businesses to pay their staff accurately and on time,” said Nikhil Goel, cofounder and CEO of SalaryBox. 

Blue-collar workers form the backbone of an economy’s workforce. The labour-intensive primary and secondary sectors make up close to 50% of our country’s GDP. Engaging with these employees and making them feel valued is crucial to the HR efforts of companies in the space. 

In most organisations, these are the workers who are involved in the most stressful and physically demanding tasks. But the disorganised nature of the workforce means that most of their grievances go unheard. Here, workforce management platforms have the opportunity to make employee-employer relationships more transparent.

Last month, blue-collar workforce management startup Smartstaff had raised $4.3 Mn in a seed funding round where Blume Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Arkam Ventures, and Gemba Capital participated. 

Around the same time, Bengaluru-based blue and grey collar workforce management startup Betterplace acquired micro-learning SaaS platform Oust Labs in an all-cash deal, just weeks after the former raised $24 Mn in Series C funding from Jungle Ventures and 3one4 Capital.

The Indian HR Payroll software industry is projected to have a revenue potential of $8 Bn by 2023, growing at a CAGR of 9%.