Australian company Employment Hero joins the $1 billion unicorn club

A Sydney entrepreneur is the latest to join an exclusive club, with plans to rival one of the biggest buy now, pay later operators in a different way.

An Aussie lawyer turned tech founder has joined an exclusive club as his company is valued over a whopping $1 billion helping it to gain ‘unicorn’ status.

Giants like Uber, Airbnb, Snapchat and Pinterest have been part of the ‘unicorn’ club for years – where a private company is valued in the billions – but there are just a few Aussie companies that can boast this milestone.

Ben Thompson is the co-founder of Australia’s latest ‘unicorn’ company, called Employment Hero, which has created a HR, payroll and benefits platform.

It closed a $181 million funding round on Thursday helping to tip it into ‘unicorn’ status, which Thompson described as a “dream”.

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Ben Thompson, CEO and co-founder of people management platform, Employment Hero, said the milestone was a dream. Picture: Supplied

He started the company after working as an employment lawyer and discovering how much small and medium businesses struggled with the legal minefield around staff.

“Think of it like this – to become a landscape gardener you need multiple certifications and to be proficient in certain skills and go out and get training and that’s just to put plants and soil in the ground, but to become an employer you don’t require any certification or training,” he told news.com.au.

“But the day you become an employer, you are legally responsible for the health and safety of anyone that works for you and are legally responsible for following hundreds, if not, thousands of laws.
“The moment you do become an employer you realise that is a lot of responsibility and a lot of things that could go wrong.

“You are never quite sure if you are doing it correctly or are just basically waiting for a time that it comes unstuck as you discover you have forgotten something or done something wrong. It's a hot bed of anxiety for anyone in business and trying to employ people.”

Since launching in 2014, Employment Hero now helps 80,000 businesses around the world manage employment issues, while 750,000 employees are paid through the platform each month.

The company processes $40 billion in payments a month. Picture: Getty Images

The Sydneysider said the company is also exploring new areas including helping business find new talent for remote working jobs, as well as launching an e-benefit system for employees to try and counter-attack the real decline in earnings that has occurred over the past 15 years.

“We have combined wages of $40 billion paid through platform and we want to help individual employees find discounts, savings and better ways to earn and get paid and save,” he added.

“The platform can give people a thousand times more buying power than an individual, so we have exciting products coming to market. One area alone can be bigger than Afterpay, but we won’t be offering debt, just smarter, faster ways to get paid and to spend effectively.”

Employment Hero has 500 staff with a policy of remote working first in order to attract the best talent given the fierce competition in the tech space, Mr Thompson said.

“I have a child with special needs and my wife and I need to be around to help him in so in my personal experience being able to work remotely enables many parents and carers to work in better ways and allows them to fulfil their responsibilities,” he said.
“Remote working also helps those people with a disability that wouldn’t be able to travel to the office, so there are many social benefits to remote work that I think are important.

“We are championing remote work for ourselves but for society too as it’s more inclusive and equitable for everyone.”

Thompson said remote working has helped him in his personal life too. Picture: Supplied.

The 48-year-old believes that remote working will tip some to join The Great Resignation as some employers force workers back into the office, which will also probably reward them with a pay rise too.

He said another way the company has personally retained staff is via their share option program, which means each employee essentially owns a part of the business.

“As we have gone from being a $10 million business when we first raised capital to a greater than $1 billion business every employee has seen their share value increase by 100 times and a lot of people, on paper, are very wealthy for having access to our share options program,” he explained.

“But it also means as CEO and founder of the business when I’m speaking to our team I’m speaking to our owners too. I think it’s a psychologically different place to be as a leader to talk to people as owners of the business and it makes us a much more formidable competitor as we all care and act as owners of the company.”

The share option has made its employees very wealthy. Picture: iStock

Employment Hero is already based in New Zealand, the UK, Malaysia and Singapore but has plans for continued global expansion in the coming years.

Other ‘unicorn' companies in Australia include graphic design company Canva, which is valued at $55 billion, banking outfit Airwallex and SafetyCulture, which was developed in a Townsville garage.

There are other members such as the Melbourne-based employee engagement start-up Culture Amp, online operator Judo Bank and e-learning library GO1.