{"id":871506,"date":"2026-08-23T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=871506"},"modified":"2026-08-21T17:23:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:23:18","slug":"american-investment-firm-backs-south-african-tech-company-that-scored-r135-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/871506\/american-investment-firm-backs-south-african-tech-company-that-scored-r135-million\/","title":{"rendered":"American investment firm backs South African tech company that scored R135 million"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

United States-based Quona Capital has backed Jem, a workforce management platform used by over 250,000 workers in South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jem, a WhatsApp-based platform for deskless teams, has secured an $8.4 million (about R135 million) Series A funding round, which Quona Capital led. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The US venture capital firm focuses on companies that expand financial access globally, including in Latin America, India, Southeast Asia, and the EMEA region. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other investors in the funding round included the University Tech Fund, E4E, and a group of angel investors, including former Old Mutual CEO Iain Williamson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The investment aims to support Jem’s ongoing growth as an HR and benefits provider into a comprehensive AI-native workforce management platform for frontline workers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company currently serves over 250,000 employees across 200+ companies, which include Servest, Bidvest, McDonald\u2019s, KFC, Seattle Coffee Company and Bootleggers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company was founded in 2020 as SmartWage by Simon Ellis\u00a0and\u00a0Caroline van der Merwe, who serve as CEO and COO, respectively. The company initially only offered Earned Wage Access<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company initially started as an Earned Wage Access provider, which allows workers to withdraw the wages they have already earned, protecting many from payday lenders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company rebranded to Jem in 2022 and added paid HR communications and payslips. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, they decided to make a risky call, in which they would give the core product away for free and bet the business on the financial services that were layered on top. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a quarter of a million users on the platform, recurring revenue has grown 120% year-on-year, with net revenue retention at 124% and negligible customer churn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latest round of funding will support the addition of more products and features, including time and attendance, rostering, onboarding, Employee Assistance Programmes, and credit scores. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany employers still run their workforces on a patchwork of legacy systems, from earned-wage-access point solutions to workforce communication tools,” said Ellis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Jem replaces that patchwork with one platform, built on WhatsApp. We designed it to be engaging and to work for the realities of deskless workforces.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quona Capital backs Jem<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Johan Bosini, Venture Partner at Quona Capital, said that Jem\u2019s WhatsApp-native platform has become the main way that employers communicate with and support their workforces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe backed Jem because it sits at a powerful intersection: essential workforce software that helps companies build deeper relationships with their people,” said Bosini. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“That creates the foundation for Jem to deliver a wider range of relevant services, including future payroll integration tools, mobile connectivity, insurance and other employee benefits.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These products and benefits have traditionally been inaccessible to the workforce through traditional financial services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quona also believes that the market is shaped in Jem’s favour, as the deskless workforce in South Africa is concentrated in a handful of giant employers across retail, security, mining, and logistics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These companies have tens of thousands of staff. Given that Jem onboards users over WhatsApp, there is zero friction, unlike the deployment slog that so often stalls workforce tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe company has grown rapidly while maintaining exceptional retention, demonstrating that the platform is solving a meaningful and recurring problem,\u201d said Bosini.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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Jem CEO Simon Ellis (left), Quona Capital’s Johan Bosini (centre), and JEM COO Caroline van der Merwe (right)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United States-based Quona Capital has backed Jem, a WhatsApp-based platform for workers in South Africa. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":871521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2091480834029052005","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2184296892390710","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18150290056537210","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26248,1110,26249],"class_list":["post-871506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-jem","tag-old-mutual","tag-quona-capital"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871506"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":871527,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871506\/revisions\/871527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}