HR automation platform Omni HR Raises USD 2.4M pre-seed funding from Alpha JWC Ventures & Picus Capital to digitize workforce management in Southeast Asia
Singapore, July 25, 2022 – HR automation platform Omni HR announced today that it recently closed $2.4 million in an oversubscribed pre-seed funding round co-led by Alpha JWC Ventures and Picus Capital, with participation from FEBE Ventures, Basis Set Ventures, Ratio Ventures and Frances Kang at Horizons Ventures. This round was also supported by a number of prominent angel investors, including former executives of Namely and Ultimate Software.
Founded in 2021 by former Goldman Sachs CEO Brian Ip and veteran data engineer YC Chan, Omni HR provides a seamless employee management system that helps companies digitize and automate the end-to-end employee lifecycle in a single platform.
According to Brian Ip, co-founder of Omni HR, “Most companies in Southeast Asia currently use local HR software that only supports basic management functions, requiring many HR processes to be done manually. Meanwhile, HR software is one of the software categories that require the most localization, due to the different labor regulations in different countries. This effectively creates a unique opportunity for local players to build a modern, scalable workforce management platform from Southeast Asia.”
Omni HR sees that the market is undergoing a shift from traditional HR or payroll software to more advanced, modern solutions for the end-to-end employee journey. The goal of Omni HR is to become the employee management platform that enables organizations to digitize employee records, automate administrative tasks, and communicate employee data seamlessly across systems. Omni HR believes that with ongoing digital transformation and software adoption trends in Southeast Asia, the workforce management platform would eventually become an important piece of software infrastructure for the region.
Since its soft launch in March 2022, Omni HR has been adopted by a number of companies to automate manual HR processes such as employee onboarding, leave management, and document management. Now coming out of its stealth mode, the company is poised to expand across the region, starting with Singapore and Indonesia.
“Our first traction showed promise and we’re off to a good start,” said Omni HR co-founder YC Chan. “We are better than the incumbents, not only because of our superior technical solutions, but also because of our understanding of the local context that allows us to design a product that fits our customers’ needs.”
The investors in this round bring a unique combination of operational know-how and strategic support. Alpha JWC is the investor in several leading startups in Southeast Asia, including Ajaib, Carro and Spenmo, while Picus Capital has extensive experience investing in HR technology companies such as Personio, Bennie and Workmotion.
With the new funding, the company will further enhance its all-in-one product offering, including the launch of a recruiting module in the third quarter and a performance management module in the fourth quarter, respectively.
“Omni is building an end-to-end HR suite that spans the entire employee lifecycle and automates the repetitive workflow to help management handle their workforce activities. With solutions that address issues facing most, if not all types of businesses, we believe Omni HR has the unique potential to grow rapidly and become the region’s preferred HR SaaS,” said Jefrey Joe, Co-Founder and General partner at Alpha JWC Ventures.
“While the HR function is the most critical in any business, we believe the Southeast Asian market is still a white space without a comprehensive and localized tool to efficiently manage a workforce and deliver a strong employee experience. Omni HR has built a clearly superior solution by going beyond basic administrative functionality and automating repetitive workflows such as onboarding in the HR departments. This need has been especially accelerated by an increasing amount of software being used in a business and an increasingly remote workforce that is more difficult to manage with traditional IT infrastructure,” said Florian Reichert, Partner & Managing Director at Picus Capital.
