Photo by Imran Molla on Unsplash
Cercli’s AI-first alternative to clunky HR systems is gaining steam across 50 countries—and it’s all coming out of a 14-person team in Dubai.
It’s 2024, and in a world still cluttered with disconnected HR tools, compliance headaches, and payroll systems that don’t speak the same language, Cercli is doing something pretty bold.
They’re rebuilding the entire HR tech stack for the MENA region from scratch—with artificial intelligence at the core.
This week, the Dubai-based startup announced it raised an oversubscribed $12 million Series A round, led by European investor Picus Capital. That’s on top of the $4 million seed they picked up last year.
But what really makes Cercli stand out? Not just the money. It’s the people and the problem they’re solving.
The People Behind the Platform
Cercli was founded by Akeed Azmi and David Reche, two former operators at Careem (the ride-hailing giant) and Kitopi. From years in the trenches, they spotted a familiar pain: handling people operations in MENA was messy—multiple systems for payroll, fragmented compliance tools, and next to no consolidation.
So they set out to fix it.
Photo by Mary Rodriguez on Unsplash
What They’re Building
Think of Cercli like a Rippling or BambooHR—but made for MENA businesses, and built with AI at its foundation rather than just layering it in.
Here’s what Cercli does:
- Combines HR, payroll, and compliance for companies across MENA that operate globally.
- Uses AI agents to handle tasks like treasury, reconciliation, recruitment shortlisting, and candidate sourcing.
- Offers a setup time of just 2 to 3 days—compared to the months it might take with older systems.
It’s working. In just a year, they scaled their revenue more than 10x and now process over $100 million in payroll annually for clients in 50 countries.
Why It Matters
In a region where businesses often stitch together five different tools just to manage their back office, Cercli’s pitch is simple: give companies one system that works.
Azmi puts it this way: “Customers are asking for everything in one place, and being AI-native allows us to build that unified experience far more quickly.”
And it’s not just words. Their client list already includes names like:
- Vision Bank
- Global Climate Finance Centre
- Lean Technologies
- Huspy
- Ziina
Cercli’s growth hasn’t gone unnoticed. This Series A round brought in not only Picus Capital—which is backing a MENA startup for the first time—but also Knollwood Investment Advisory, and returning investors like Y Combinator, Afore Capital, and COTU Ventures.
Rethinking Legacy Systems
Azmi doesn’t believe in just adding AI on top. Cercli went all-in and rewrote its entire payroll engine over the last three months to be multi-country and AI agent-compatible.
“Legacy systems like SAP and Oracle were built for on-prem or early cloud,” Azmi said. “We’re entering an AI-native world. We didn’t want to just integrate AI—we wanted to rethink the whole stack.”
They’ve applied the same thinking to recruitment. Their new hiring tools don’t just collect resumes—they use agents to surface top candidates based on internal datasets and contextual fit.
The Road Ahead
With $12 million in fresh funding, Cercli is planning to build more AI-native tools and expand its customer base across the $5.8 billion HR software opportunity in the region.
For Picus Capital, backing Cercli feels like a natural fit. “We’ve seen this business model succeed globally,” said founding partner Robin Godenrath. “We’re excited to back Cercli as they grow through new customers and product launches.”
Photo by Waqar Mujahid on Unsplash
And whether you’re a startup or a multinational, if you’re struggling with payroll, compliance, or HR software that feels like it was built in 2005, Cercli wants to be the upgrade you’ve been waiting for.
Keywords: Cercli, MENA HR software, AI payroll platform, AI HR tools, Dubai startups, enterprise software MENA, Cercli Series A, Picus Capital, Akeed Azmi, Rippling for Middle East
