Keka HR

The story of Keka begins not in a boardroom, but with a common business frustration. In 2015, founder Vijay Yalamanchili was running an IT services company and found the existing HR software on the market to be clunky and unintuitive. Instead of settling, he decided to build a solution. With a small team, Yalamanchili founded Keka in Hyderabad, India, with a clear mission: to create a simple, user-centric HR platform that focused on employee experience. Bootstrapped from the start, Keka grew by focusing intensely on its product, which automated payroll, attendance, and performance management for small and mid-sized businesses. This product-led approach resonated with a segment of the market often caught between basic spreadsheets and overly complex enterprise systems. The company achieved steady growth without outside funding, hitting its 100-customer milestone in 2017 and surpassing $1 million in annual recurring revenue by 2019. The turning point arrived in 2022. After years of deliberate, self-funded growth, Keka accepted its first major institutional funding. The company secured a $57 million Series A round led by WestBridge Capital, marking one of the largest SaaS funding rounds of its kind in India. This infusion of capital was earmarked for research and development, aiming to scale the platform for a global market while maintaining its core focus on solving real-world HR problems.