In a region long defined by fragmented enterprise systems, outdated compliance tools, and HR software that rarely interacts with finance departments, Cercli is building an integrated alternative for MENA businesses with AI at its core.
The Dubai-based startup, founded by former Careem operators Akeed Azmi and David Reche, announced an oversubscribed $12 million Series A round led by European VC firm Picus Capital.
Cerkuli looks a little different today than the company that raised $4 million in a seed round last year. We’re rebuilding a stack like Rippling for the MENA region, but making it AI-native from the ground up.
Over the past year, that gamble has paid off. The company says it has grown its revenue more than 10 times and now processes more than $100 million in payroll annually for multiple companies in 50 countries.
But why does the market need another HR technology company in a crowded HR technology market, where incumbents like SAP and Oracle, as well as dozens of startups like Deel and Remote, are already promising services for everything from cross-border payments to payroll? CEO Azmi hopes an AI-first reinvention can help differentiate the company.
Azmi founded Cercli to help companies with basic HR tasks. This was a problem he and Reche noticed at their previous employers, Careem and Kitopi, two of MENA’s best-known unicorns.
Because payroll spans multiple systems and compliance varies by region, Cercli’s first version focused on a platform that unifies HR, payroll, and compliance for MENA-based companies with operations around the world.
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But Azmi says he envisions even bigger opportunities with the incorporation of AI. So over the past three months, the company has rewritten its entire payroll engine to support multiple countries and agents, allowing it to scale more efficiently across jurisdictions around the world, Azmi said.
“The legacy systems of the past 20 years (like SAP, Oracle, Workday) were built on-premises and in the cloud. Now we are entering an AI-native world,” Azmi said in an interview with TechCrunch. “We didn’t just want to integrate AI, we wanted to rethink the entire stack of how people and agents work together.”
Something similar is done for the recruitment module. Cercli currently offers agent-driven functionality that can display a list of candidates, source from internal datasets, and run background logic based on suitability.
The company uses a custom-built financial and reconciliation agent to manage its finances and accounting, so internal operations are run with AI. According to Azmi, the 14-person team closed the Series A with 21% month-over-month revenue growth.
Beyond AI, the founders believe that another strength of Cercli lies in integration. While there are many multi-module HR competitors such as Deel, Rippling, and BambooHR, MENA companies often stitch together their back-offices from point solutions. Businesses may use a variety of products for expense management, payroll, and recruiting.
“Customers want everything in one place, and being AI-native allows us to build unified experiences faster,” Azmi explained.
Azmi said Cercli’s AI-native architecture also allows for faster customer onboarding. Setup can be completed in two to three days, he claims, compared to the months that traditional systems typically take. This has helped the two-year-old HR tech startup acquire clients ranging from startups to multinationals, including Vision Bank, Global Climate Finance Centre, Huspy, Lean Technologies, and Ziina.
Cerkuli is also PIX Capital’s first MENA investment. The company supports other global HR companies such as Personalio, Multiplier, Deel, Maki, and JetHR.
Other investors participating in this Series A round include Knollwood Investment Advisory, as well as existing investors Y Combinator, Afore Capital, and COTU Ventures.
As part of the investment, the company will develop new AI-native products and work to capture further market share in the $5.8 billion HR software opportunity in MENA.
“We have seen the success of this business model globally within our portfolio, and we are excited to support Cerkuli as it continues to grow its market share through new customers and product launches,” said Robin Godenrath, founding partner at PIX Capital.
