PagarBook scoops up $15 Mn in Series A round led by Sequoia

Staff management app PagarBook has raised $15 million in its Series A funding round led by existing investors Sequoia Capital. The round also saw participation from India Quotient. Both investors had backed the Bengaluru-based startup in its seed round.

According to PagarBook, fresh proceeds will be used in product development and customer acquisition. It also plans to add financial products such as payments and credit for MSMEs and their employees on its platform in 2021.

Entrackr had exclusively reported PagarBook’s Series A round which kicked off in October.

“India’s 60 million SMEs and its 400 million large workforce contribute roughly 30% of India’s GDP, but still lack a verified financial and professional footprint in any organised technology ecosystem. As a result, they are left out of the mainstream financial ecosystem. At PagarBook, we address this massive gap with our digital human capital platform for SMEs,” said Rupesh Kumar Mishra, co-founder of PagarBook in a press release.

Floated by Mishra, Adarsh Kumar and Arya Adarsha Gautam, PagarBook lets small companies maintain attendance, salaries, advance payments, payroll management through a mobile and desktop app which is available across 12 languages including Hindi, Hinglish, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali and Tamil. 

According to the company’s website, it has a presence in over 650 districts in Indian and has more than 50 lakh registered SMEs on the platform. PagarBook was recently selected in the fourth cohort of Sequoia Capital’s accelerator program Surge. 

While PagarBook has been a single player in the space for the initial 8-10 months, the entry of deep-pocketed rivals such as OkCredit and Khatabook in staff management has made the segment competitive. Last month, Lightspeed-backed OkCredit and Sequoia-backed Khatabook had launched their separate staff management apps OkStaff and Pagarkhata, respectively.