European HR technology firm Factorial has closed a $150 million (Sh19.4 billion) Series D funding round led by General Catalyst, valuing the company at $2.5 billion (Sh323 billion).
Existing investors Atomico and Four Rivers also took part in the round. General Catalyst will additionally invest $540 million (Sh69.8 billion) in non-dilutive capital through its Customer Value Fund, taking Factorial’s total non-dilutive funding past $700 million (Sh90.4 billion).
Factorial serves more than 16,000 businesses in over 90 countries, including a growing base of enterprise clients in East Africa.
The funding backs a shift in Factorial’s product strategy, from a conventional software-as-a-service HR provider to what it calls an AI workforce operations platform. The company’s new product, Factorial One, is built around a two-agent system: one agent trained on an organisation’s HR, finance and IT policies, and a second that acts on behalf of individual employees, drafting work and completing tasks.
“Ten years ago, we started Factorial as a SaaS company,” said Jordi Romero, CEO and co-founder. “Today, Factorial is an AI-first company, working towards creating agents for our clients. We have completed our transformation journey by resetting the product, the architecture, and running our client’s operations around AI agents. This partnership will give us the required confidence and capital to build an industry-defining product.”
The company points to rising HR technology adoption in East Africa as part of the case for the raise. Citing Deloitte’s 2025 Africa Human Capital Trends report, Factorial said more than 60 percent of medium-sized enterprises in Africa’s major cities have adopted at least one digital HR tool.
The continent’s payroll software market was valued at $487.3 million (Sh63 billion) in 2026 and is projected to reach $1.66 billion (Sh214.5 billion) by 2035, growing at a compound annual rate of 14.6 percent, according to the report.
Francesc Rul·lan, Factorial’s VP of Strategy and Partnerships, said the region stands out among the company’s markets.
“East Africa represents one of the most exciting growth frontiers for enterprise technology. The ambition, the pace of business growth, and the appetite for intelligent solutions across Kenya and the wider region are unlike anywhere else we operate,” he said. “We are committed to being a long-term partner to East African organisations as they build the people management infrastructure needed to compete and scale.”
Factorial cited a Kenyan logistics firm that cut its payroll processing time from five days to under six hours after adopting an HR system, as an example of the efficiency gains driving enterprise interest in the region.
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