The funding also saw backing from Y Combinator, Afore Capital, and COTU Ventures, alongside several high-profile angel investors.

Founded by Akeed Azmi and David Reche, both former Careem operators, Cercli was built to solve a long-standing problem in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, fragmented HR systems and outdated compliance processes that fail to connect HR, payroll, and finance. 

The company’s new AI-native architecture aims to unify these operations under one intelligent platform.

In just a year, Cercli has recorded 10x revenue growth, processed over $100 million in payroll across 50 countries, and expanded its customer base to include both startups and large corporations such as Vision Bank, Backlite Media, Global Climate Finance Centre, Huspy, Lean Technologies, and Ziina.

With the new capital, Cercli plans to expand its global footprint, strengthen its engineering team, and roll out new AI-native products designed to automate and simplify HR operations for businesses of all sizes. 

The company is currently hiring top talent from global tech giants such as Google, Meta, and Rippling to ensure its platform remains fast, secure, and reliable.

Azmi explained that Cercli’s focus has always been on rebuilding HR infrastructure from the ground up, not just layering AI onto existing systems. “The legacy systems of the last 20 years, your SAPs, Oracles, Workdays, they were built for on-prem and the cloud. Now we’re entering an AI-native world,” he said. 

“We didn’t want to just integrate AI; we wanted to rethink the whole stack for how people and agents work together.”

That rethink is already boosting Cercli’s services. Its new AI-driven recruitment assistant, Cera, now allows companies to manage hiring from application to onboarding, all within the same system. 

Cercli’s internal operations also rely on AI, with treasury and reconciliation agents managing its finances as the company maintains an average 21% month-on-month revenue growth.

According to Robin Godenrath, founding partner at Picus Capital, Cercli’s integrated approach to workforce management and its early traction made the investment a natural choice. “We’ve seen this business model succeed globally within our portfolio, and we are excited to back Cercli as they continue to grow market share through new customers and product launches,” he said.

Cercli’s Series A round also represents Picus Capital’s first investment in the MENA region, highlighting growing investor trust in the region’s HR-tech potential, an industry projected to exceed $5.8 billion in value.

Cercli is scaling further, and its founders believe that being AI-native gives them a distinct advantage. “Customers are asking for everything in one place, and being AI-native allows us to build that unified experience far more quickly,” Azmi noted.

The startup wants to deliver a single, intelligent platform that manages people, data, and processes seamlessly across borders, and to do so faster than any legacy company ever could.

This investment, led by San Francisco’s Afore Capital, is the firm’s first entry into the MENA region. 

Cercli, co-founded by Akeed Azmi and David Reche in January, aims to simplify payroll management for businesses operating in the region, which have traditionally faced high compliance costs and inefficiencies due to human error.

Afore Capital’s backing in this funding round was influenced by the pressing need for a strong solution to manage a global workforce while adhering to local compliance requirements. 

The founders of Cercli are addressing this issue by developing a platform that integrates various HR and payroll systems, enabling companies to manage and pay their employees both locally and globally with greater accuracy and efficiency.

Azmi, who previously held senior positions at Kitopi and Careem, experienced these challenges firsthand. During his tenure, he managed employee payroll across multiple countries, often having to rely on manual processes and disparate systems. 

Recognizing that this issue extended beyond tech startups to companies of all sizes in the region, Azmi, alongside Reche, launched Cercli to provide a unified platform that could replace outdated payroll practices.

Cercli’s platform offers an all-around solution that reduces human error, ensures compliance, and provides a single source of truth for all employee-related data. 

This approach has made it an attractive alternative to other solutions like Deel and Remotepass, which, while useful for remote contractor payroll, do not meet the specific needs of local payroll management in the MENA region.

The startup’s platform has been well received, with clients shifting their payroll operations from other systems to Cercli due to its ability to handle both local and remote payroll needs. 

Cercli’s technology also integrates with other workplace tools, creating a seamless experience for businesses managing HR, finance, accounting, and legal processes.

Cercli has experienced rapid growth since its launch, reporting a 25% month-on-month increase in business and managing over $23 million in employee salaries across 31 countries. 

The startup is targeting mid-market enterprises, where the need for integrated HR and payroll solutions is most pronounced.

With the growing demand for payroll and HR solutions across emerging markets, Cercli is thriving to scale beyond its current reach across the MENA region. The startup plans to use the seed funding to expand its team, develop new products for SMEs and larger enterprises, and increase its presence in key markets.

With competitors like RemotePass and Workpay also eyeing the MENA region, Cercli is focused on solidifying its position by codifying local regulations into its platform, a task that has yet to be fully accomplished by any company in the region.

Cercli’s focus on localization and compliance is expected to set it apart from the competition.