Earny: Automated payroll app for Swiss SMEs & Startups
After raising close to 1 M CHF, Earny launches automated payroll app for SMEs & Startups in Switzerland
The 1M CHF investment is backed by Polytech Ventures, ACE & Company, and Fusion Partners and was used to accelerate the launch of Earny’s public SaaS beta that went live November 2021.
“In Switzerland, SMEs can choose to run payroll themselves or work with an accountant however either process is broken,” says Co-founder Bassil Eid. “SMEs who work with accountants spend on average 2 hours a month collecting payroll data. SMEs who do it themselves need help every time there is a payroll change as Swiss payroll software does not guide the user.”
Earny’s platform enables anyone in the SME to run payroll without previous payroll knowledge. If the SME is working with an accountant, they invite her to the platform to share data securely and seamlessly saving on avg 150 CHF on accounting costs.
“We were inspired by a U.S payroll startup called Gusto who secured 175 Mil in August 2021 for a 10 Billion USD valuation claiming 200,000 SME customers” states Guillaume Dubray, CEO of Polytech Ventures. “In Switzerland, we have close to 600,000 SMEs which employ 3 Million Swiss residents. In addition, there are 45,000 newly created SMEs each year. Today alone there are 137 newly created SMEs.” he adds
SMEs typically pay on average 25-50 CHF per employee per month to run payroll with an accountant. That cost is usually baked into a larger set of accounting services charged yearly. “For our accounting firm, payroll is quite administrative and we are spending a lot of time chasing data via email or shared excel and retyping that data into our software. With Earny, we can save time and no longer wait idle for data to come in.” says Sven Roost, Managing Partner at the accounting firm Infeas.
Earny was founded May 2021 and already secured a Swissdec certification for which Eid responded “Typically, it takes 2 years to launch a payroll app in Switzerland and receive a SwissDec certification. We bought an existing SwissDec app and used this backend as the payroll calculator allowing us to focus on reimagining the front end experience.” Swissdec assures that payroll software can calculate payroll accurately in all employee scenarios. It’s the silver stamp for payroll software.
In November 2021, Earny opened access to its solution to all customers in an effort to collect feedback and improve the product. In Q1 2022, Earny’s will have incorporated all this feedback and re-introduce a more refined product which aims to simplify and automate many of the mundane payroll tasks done today.
