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Employment Hero Pty Ltd
Employment Hero sells cloud software that handles payroll, HR, and employee benefits for small and medium businesses, mostly in Australia and the UK.
Employment Hero is a software company that runs the boring-but-essential paperwork of employing people. Small and medium businesses use it to pay staff correctly, track leave, onboard new hires, store contracts, and manage performance reviews — all in one place instead of a mess of spreadsheets and email. Its customers are mostly business owners and HR managers who don't have a big HR department and want one dashboard to do the job.
The clever part of the model is how it pays for itself. Employment Hero bundles in benefits — things like discounts at retailers — and lets employees access their already-earned wages before payday. That benefits side brings in money and keeps workers opening the app, which in turn makes the software stickier for the employer. The core pitch is simple: switching away from a system that already handles your payroll and your people is a pain, so once a business is in, it tends to stay. The company was founded in Sydney in 2014 by Ben Thompson and Simon Crooks, and it has grown fast by expanding beyond Australia into the UK and Southeast Asia, partly through acquisitions. It raised a big funding round in 2021 that valued it at over A$1 billion, making it one of Australia's better-known tech "unicorns." Competition comes from established payroll and HR players and a crowd of newer software upstarts, and the UK market in particular is a costly place to win customers.
The honest risks: this is a private, venture-backed company that has spent heavily to grow, and software that handles payroll carries real responsibility — if payslips are wrong, customers leave fast. It also depends on keeping both employers and their employees engaged, since the benefits and earned-wage features are a big part of the appeal. For now, the bet is that owning the everyday relationship between a business and its staff is a durable place to sit.
Saved answer · last researched 10 Nov 2026