Dubai – Sharikat Mubasher: Cercli, the unified modern platform for MENA businesses to hire, manage, and pay their global workforce, announced securing $4 million in a seed round led by Silicon Valley-headquartered Afore Capital.
This milestone deal marks Afore’s MENA debut, with the investment being allocated from its $150 million fund III, according to a press release.
Cercli’s seed round also had participation from COTU Ventures, Y Combinator, and Rebel Fund, alongside the likes of Karim Atiyeh (Ramp), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi), Tony Dong (Rippling), Tony Jamous (Oyster), Allison Pickens, the founders and executives from unicorns Kitopi, Careem and other notable MENA-based startups.
With a $2 billion market opportunity in MENA for payroll alone and businesses facing burdensome compliance costs due to human error, Cercli is on a mission to transform how businesses manage their workforce through one single platform.
Cercli’s founders Akeed Azmi and David Reche previously scaled and managed teams at Kitopi and Careem, two of the region’s largest unicorns, where they recognized the need for a comprehensive solution to manage an international workforce experiencing hypergrowth.
Akeed Azmi, co-founder, of Cercli said: “The cost of workforce-related compliance is one of the biggest challenges for C-suite executives across our region. We built Cercli to replace multiple isolated systems as the singular modern payroll and employee data platform, empowering businesses to manage their local payroll, remote contractors, employer of record, HR, onboarding, and more. Today, we are excited to welcome globally renowned investors whose experience in supporting early-stage companies will propel our growth across our core markets and adjacent product SKUs.”
Enterprises in the region have been challenged with the use of spreadsheets and fragmented legacy software for individual tasks, leading to fraud, data privacy, payroll errors, delays, and other issues. Cercli unites all back-office functions through a single platform, replacing disconnected individual systems, so companies maintain data integrity and a source of truth across their greatest asset—their people.
Since launching earlier in 2024, Cercli has grown by 25% month on month and has paid out over $23 million in clients’ employee salaries across 31 countries.
Anamitra Banerji, co-founder and managing partner of Afore Capital commented: “At Cercli, Akeed and David are building to solve one of the region’s largest challenges—managing a global workforce while meeting compliance requirements. This investment is reflective of our recognition of the massive untapped potential of the MENA region and the possibilities that game-changing founders are enabling here. In just a few months, Cercli has not only assembled a solid team of builders and operators but has attracted marquee customers as well.”
Cercli’s platform is designed and engineered around the customer’s needs while being localized to be compliant with market-specific regulatory changes and labor law revisions. The company’s technology team has built integrations across HR, finance, accounting, legal, and IT software, allowing customers to seamlessly plug into the Cercli platform, which acts as their primary source of truth.
Amir Farha, Founder, of COTU Ventures added: “Across the Middle East, technology-powered startups are at the heart of enabling economic transformation. With businesses building diverse global teams, the need for a solution like Cercli is imperative. Akeed and David are highly respected founders with a solid regional track record, a well-validated concept, and have delivered incredible growth since launch, which gives us great confidence in Cercli’s future. We are excited to join them in this journey and can’t wait to see them play a larger role across the region.”
David Reche, co-founder, of Cercli stated: “As we unite the various complex layers of workforce management in MENA, technology and talent lie at the core of our ability to build a powerful yet simplified product. We are extremely proud of having recruited highly skilled engineers from global technology enterprises. With the backing of our new investors, we will double down on growth while attracting world-class talent to accelerate the adoption of Cercli across our regional economy.”
