Digital payroll platform Skuad procures $4m seed

Skuad, a digital payroll platform for remote teams, has raised $4 million in seed financing. The investors included BEENEXT and Anthemis Group.

PRESS RELEASE

Singapore, December 21, 2020: Skuad, a digital payroll platform for remote teams announced today that it has raised USD $4 million in seed financing. The startup secured backing from leading global venture capital firms BEENEXT and Anthemis Group, alongside Alto Partners Multi-Family Office and Rohan Monga, CEO of Zenius Education among others. The platform is currently being used by companies in countries across South East Asia, Africa and North America to build and pay their geographically distributed teams. With the latest fundraise, Skuad plans to use these funds to grow their remote employment infrastructure and scale their growth team in multiple geographies.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought an unprecedented shift in how organizations are building teams and there is significant adoption of hiring great talent beyond the geographical boundaries. But, hiring in other countries is not only highly complex, it also has compliance risks associated with it. Through its Global Employment Platform, Skuad helps employers build and pay their remote workforce seamlessly, without needing to set up local entities. The platform not only automates global payroll, local compliance and taxation but also provides benefits for employees spread across geographies. Companies can onboard employees or contractors anywhere within minutes, which has proven to be an essential component of remote work in the COVID era.

Skuad was co-founded by Sundeep Sahi (former Chief Product Officer at Brand Networks and ex Microsoft), Naman Singhal (former CEO of AppStreet, a mobile application development company) and Dave Fall (former CEO Brand Networks and ex Google). They had built and scaled distributed teams across four continents prior to this and were overwhelmed by the complexities involved. With this platform, they are enabling companies to tap into top talent available globally without the intricacies or excessive costs involved in managing local entities or related compliances.

“With Skuad, we are on a mission to enable companies to build teams with global talent quickly while opening up amazing opportunities for top talent to realize their dreams to work for startups as well global companies even if they are not geographically co-located. ” said Sundeep Sahi, CEO of Skuad.

Dirk Van Quaquebeke, Managing Partner BEENEXT said, “As an enabler of operationalizing distributed teams, Skuad brings in simplicity and seamlessness to hiring while doing away with expansion or capacity constraints. We look forward to being a part of their journey in becoming a global standard for remote working.”

The renewed focus on remote workforces in this new climate has meant that startups are rapidly innovating to tackle this new challenge head-on. With Skuad, building world-class distributed teams with ease and efficiency will become the industry standard. To learn more, visit www.skuad.io

About Skuad:
Skuad is a Global Employment platform to hire, pay and manage globally distributed teams that enables companies to hire amazing talent from a global talent pool in minutes. Skuad is a fully remote company with employees based in several different countries and customers spread across US, Africa and South-East Asia

About BEENEXT:
BEENEXT is a Venture Capital fund managed by serial entrepreneurs that focuses on assisting founders with its operational experience, network, trust, unique perspectives, and the capital. The team invests in early-stage tech start-ups that are focused on building the new digital platforms driven by the data network. BEENEXT aims to establish a platform of founders, by the founders and for the founders across the globe, primarily in South East Asia, India and Japan. Since its establishment in 2015, the team has invested in over 180 companies globally. For more information, please click: www.beenext.com

About Anthemis Group:
Anthemis cultivates change in financial services by investing in, growing and sustaining businesses committed to improving the world. We are founded on three guiding principles — authentic collaboration, virtuous cycle outcomes, and diversity and inclusivity — and our deep understanding of markets and models, passion for emerging technology and values inspire everything we do. By creating fertile ground for a diverse group of startups, investors, entrepreneurs, institutions, academics and visionaries to converge, we believe we can solve the financial services world’s most pressing challenges faster, better and for the benefit of all.

About Alto Venture Partners:
Alto Partners is one of the region’s first Multi-Family Offices founded by and for Asia’s leading entrepreneurs and next-generation investors. Our partners founded or led investments into some the region’s most iconic growth stories in Asia, which means we are not just investors, but we are also proven business builders. We invest our own capital across liquid and illiquid asset classes, with a particular focus on early-stage fin-tech, edu-tech and consumer SaaS technologies, where we can also contribute our expertise and relationships across an extensive global network. Recognized by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a Registered Fund Management Company, we also create opportunities for sophisticated investors and strategic partners to participate with us on investments. Please visit our website www.alto-partners.com to learn more.