This HR Tech Firm Worth $100 Million Is Ready To Conquer Asia

The following story was first published on Forbes.com on October 9, 2019 where I cover entrepreneurship and investing in Asia. Forbes is a global media company, focusing on business, investing, technology, entrepreneurship, leadership, and lifestyle.

In the dizzying world of technology startups, it’s easy to get lost in the hype of hot trends such as AI, blockchain, VR/AR and machine learning. What is often forgotten is the fact that some of the best startups in the world solve the simplest of problems. This is exactly the approach that Pascal Henry, who is the CEO and Co-Founder of HReasily, took when he identified the most basic needs of rapidly growing SMEs – to operate their human resource management more efficiently. Henry launched his Singapore-based HR solutions company in late 2015 as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product that enables companies to increase productivity by using technology to streamline traditional processes such as payroll processing, leave management and expense claims applications.

“When I was running my first startup in Singapore, I had to do a lot of the manual processes myself. I felt the pain and the drain of it. It was taking up a lot of my time and energy, when I should have been focusing on building my business.  I looked for solutions that would help me but I couldn’t find what I wanted. I realized there was a gap in the market,” explains Henry.

Improving productivity and efficiency

HReasily’s mission statement is simple – to innovate and automate HR throughout the world. As one of the fastest-growing cloud-based HR SaaS companies in the region, their simple modules and features aim to transform many of the legacy HR processes and automate them to be accessible anytime and anywhere. Currently the company offers seven modules including payroll, staff leave, employee contracts and attendance. As HReasily grows, it continues to add product lines aimed at empowering companies to scale faster.

“Previously, a lot of businesses used solutions that each looked after a particular silo of an HR department. So you’d have one system to manage your payroll calculations, one to manage your leave and others to manage other functions. What happened was you had to log in and out of many various systems, and these systems cost a huge amount of money. What we’ve done is build a solution that is very affordable that integrates with all the functions on a unified platform,” says Henry. 

A simple but elegant business model

HReasily runs a subscription-based revenue model. Starting with payroll, which is at the core of every traditional HR office, the company offers premium versions that run on monthly or yearly subscriptions, with add-on modules available such as staff leave and time attendance. This past summer at the RISE 2019 conference in Hong Kong, Henry and his team unveiled their latest benefits management module which will soon allow customers to acquire group level insurance, healthcare and even apply for credit cards or loans.

HReasily’s competitive advantage lies in their customer base, which is mostly SMEs. By initially focusing on the most basic needs of this particular customer segment, the company has earned the support of larger banking and government agency partners and is known as an “SME champion”. Not surprisingly, as the company grew it began attracting larger corporations, publicly listed companies, multinational corporations and even payroll outsourcing firms.

“As we grew we acquired a more diverse customer base, because a lot of larger companies are tired of the older solutions. These older solutions are expensive because they need to be installed on premise and they require a refresher every year when rules and regulations change. With new SaaS solutions out there, customers have started to look at solutions they can use to take back control of their internal processes.” Henry explains.

Partnerships are the key to explosive growth

Being based in Singapore has allowed HReasily to capitalize off of the rapid growth in Southeast Asia. Of all the enterprises in the region, SMEs make up 98% of them, employing half of the workforce. HReasily’s growth has been nothing short of explosive. With nearly 30,000 companies on their platform and more than 100 new companies onboarding every single day, HReasily is growing rapidly in Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Some of HReasily’s notable customers include e-commerce behemoth Lazada, Love Bonito (in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong), Sambat Finance (Cambodia), OnlinePajak (Indonesia) and TechInAsia. As the company looks to complete their coverage of Asia, the next major market they look to tackle is China followed by Taiwan, Japan, Myanmar and Australia.

Investors have taken notice of this growth as well. Fresh off a pre-series A funding round of $5 million from Envy Capital, HReasily is currently estimated to be valued at over $100 million. Henry admits that the company’s astonishing growth in the region has only been possible with the support from their key strategic partners early on.

“We work with Citibank, Mazars and Stripe. Mazars is one of the lead investors from our first round of funding. They are a global audit, advisory and payroll outsourcing firm with 300 offices in 100 countries. We work with them when we go to each country, because when we go to any country, we make it a point to localize. So even though we started in Singapore, when we go to Hong Kong, we become a local Hong Kong solution. We cater specifically to the local market in Hong Kong, with a team on the ground serving the Hong Kong customers,” explains Henry.

Two other key partnerships that HReasily formed more than three years ago are with United Overseas Bank (UOB) and Visa. With UOB, SMEs across ASEAN are able to use HReasily as part of UOB’s BizSmart solution suite. With Visa, HReasily works to tackle an area of great expense for businesses – payroll and employee benefits. Through this partnership, businesses across the region can now use Visa cards as a payment option, which not only helps streamline the payment process but also improves cash flow and optimizes working capital.

HReasily is also finalising a deal with one of the largest regional banks in Asia to white label their product and build an array of digital banking products together. This is yet another example of HReasily’s mantra of building long term strategic relationships for future success.

“Today, building a solid ecosystem of strategic partners is very important because you come from different angles, but you all serve one customer, which is the SME or the business. By coming together, we collectively create a great end-to-end experience for them. There’s strength in numbers,” says Henry.