Cercli, the unified modern platform for MENA businesses to hire, manage and pay their global workforce, has raised $4 million in a seed round led by Silicon Valley-headquartered Afore Capital. This milestone deal marks Afore’s MENA debut, with the investment allocated from its $150 million fund III.

Cercli’s seed round also included participation from COTU Ventures, Y Combinator, and Rebel Fund, as well as Karim Atiyeh (Ramp), Sebastian Mejia (Rappi), Tony Dong (Rippling), Tony Jamous (Oyster), Allison Pickens, the founders and executives of unicorns Kitopi and 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 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 recognised the need for a comprehensive solution to manage an international workforce experiencing hypergrowth.

“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,” said Akeed Azmi, co-founder, Cercli.

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. “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,” said Anamitra Banerji, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Afore Capital.

Cercli’s platform is designed and engineered around the customer’s needs while being localised to be compliant with market-specific regulatory changes and labour law revisions. The company’s technology team have 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.

“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, and 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,” said Amir Farha, Founder, COTU Ventures.

“As we unite the various complex layers of workforce management in MENA, technology and talent lies 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,” said David Reche, co-founder, Cercli.