South African workforce management start-up Jem has raised $8.4m in a Series A funding round led by Quona Capital, an emerging markets fintech investor with $750m in assets under management.
The round included participation from University Technology Fund, E4E and Next176/FutureGrowth, alongside angel investors including Iain Williamson, former chief executive of Old Mutual. Jem said the capital would be used to accelerate growth and product development.
Founded in 2020 as SmartWage and rebranded in 2022, Jem began by offering earned wage access over WhatsApp, allowing employees to draw wages they had already earned and receive funds within 90 minutes. It has since expanded into payslips, onboarding, time and attendance, leave management, workforce communication and employee benefits.
The company said it now serves more than 250,000 frontline workers across more than 200 employers, including facilities group Servest, KFC franchise operator Albimix, Meridian, The Capital, Edgars and Illovo. According to Quona, Jem’s recurring revenue grew more than 100 per cent year on year and net revenue retention stands at approximately 120 per cent, with what it described as negligible customer churn.
“Jem has already demonstrated strong product-market fit,” said Johan Bosini, venture partner at Quona Capital. “It serves over a quarter-million employees, has grown recurring revenue by more than 100 per cent year on year, and has achieved approximately 120 per cent net revenue retention with negligible customer churn.”
Bosini said Jem’s WhatsApp-based platform was becoming “important infrastructure” through which employers communicate with, manage and support their workforces. That foundation, he added, could allow Jem to deliver payroll tools, mobile connectivity, insurance and other employee benefits to users who are largely inaccessible to traditional financial services.
Simon Ellis, Jem’s co-founder and chief executive, said employers had “spent years stitching together a dozen disparate systems to run their teams.” Jem, he said, is “now the one place they can do all of it.”
The company recently launched Jem 2.0, a new version of its employer hub. Time-and-attendance, credit scores and an employee assistance programme are already live, while rostering and a learning management system are in beta. Jem also said employers can connect to the platform through a secure MCP integration to use its tools within existing AI systems.
Jem traces its origins to a response to payday lending. Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder and chief operating officer, said the start-up was created because payday lenders were “profiting from employed people struggling with cashflow, entirely outside the employer-employee relationship, and costing them roughly ten times more.”
The Series A follows a $3.3m pre-Series A round led by Next176, which included a R30m private debt facility, and a $2m seed round in 2022. Jem did not disclose a valuation for the latest round.
The investment reflects growing interest in African workforce technology aimed at deskless employees, a segment often underserved by traditional HR software and financial services. WhatsApp’s wide adoption in markets such as South Africa has made it a practical distribution channel for services aimed at frontline workers.
Edward Heynes, group executive for business excellence at Servest, said Jem had “made a huge difference to how we connect with, manage, and reward our 18,000 employees.” University Technology Fund, an existing investor, said it had increased its investment in the round.