Paismo uses payroll to sell banking, insurance and hiring services

Paismo told investors in August 2023 that it aimed to pass $1 million in annual recurring revenue by the end of 2024. That is $83,333 a month from a product whose price the company does not publish. The target is a useful way to read an HR and payroll software company, set up by two University of Pennsylvania alumni and run partly from Lahore, that has spent the time since adding bank partners, a salary payment link and a hiring service, so that one monthly chore can support several kinds of revenue.

Two founders and a seed round

Rebecka Zavaleta spent a decade in product roles in California, with releases at Google, TikTok and Meta, and is now based in Lahore. Usama Mahmud advised the Punjab government on education reforms and helped it raise more than $50 million in 2020 and 2021. The company raised $200,000 in November 2022, according to Crunchbase data cited by Business Recorder, and then a $1.3 million seed round announced on 22 August 2023. Indus Valley Capital led it, with Antler and Jedar Capital taking part. The round was oversubscribed, and Paismo said the money would go to hiring and operating costs. Total funding stood at about $1.5 million.

“We've sat through hundreds of different company payrolls and are building the most streamlined, customisable product.”

Mahmud has said the main HR and payroll problems businesses face are similar wherever they operate, which is the case for building one product and selling it in many countries.

What the software covers

Paismo's website lists core HR, time and attendance, automated payroll, a performance suite, recruitment, leave management and reimbursements. Further modules cover asset management, workflows, a policy manager, loan management and a letter manager. The company also offers a public API, a marketplace of integrations, biometric device support, mobile apps, a 14 day free trial and a claim of ISO 27001 certification. It says it serves businesses of all sizes, with a stated focus on the Gulf. No prices are shown.

The module list matters because payroll is only as accurate as its inputs. Hours come from attendance records, absences from leave, and deductions from loans and reimbursements. When all of these sit in one system, the figures pass into the pay run without anyone retyping them. That is the standard argument for a suite over a stand alone payroll tool, and it is the argument Paismo makes.

Banks and insurers as a sales channel

In Pakistan Paismo leans on two named partners. Adamjee Insurance supplies localised benefits, and MCB Islamic Bank supplies financial incentives. The company says its home market focus is to raise the number of employees with bank accounts and to widen access to health benefits.

The logic is distribution. An employee on a payroll is a verified person with a regular income, which is what a bank wants for a salary account and an insurer wants for group health cover. A software company that sits between employer and employee can hand both partners a ready made audience, and the partners can in turn introduce the software to the employers they already serve. The terms between Paismo and its partners are not public.

Salary payments through easypaisa

On 14 March 2025 Paismo and easypaisa announced one click payroll disbursement, which Business Recorder described as the first such feature in Pakistan. Salaries can go to employees' wallets and to bank accounts, including accounts at any bank. Zavaleta contrasted this with the usual arrangement, in which every employee has to hold an account at one particular bank.

The mechanics are simple. A payroll run produces a list of people and amounts. Without an integration, a finance team exports that list and uploads it to a bank portal, or hands out cash. With one, the list goes to the payment provider in a single step, and the payroll system can mark each salary as paid. The harder question is regulatory. A company that starts and tracks every salary payment sits close to the flow of funds, and the announcement does not say whether Paismo or easypaisa carries the duties that come with moving salary money under State Bank rules.

The arithmetic of $1 million

A target of $1 million a year equals $83,333 a month. Paismo has not published its price, so the customer count cannot be derived, but the arithmetic scales cleanly. For every dollar of monthly price per employee, the target needs 83,333 employees on the platform. At a price of $5 a month, which is an illustration and not Paismo's rate, it would need about 16,700. A company serving mostly small and mid sized firms would need many hundreds of customers to get there.

Paismo has not said whether it met the target, and it has not published revenue or a customer count since. The seed round arrived in a thin market: Invest2Innovate figures cited by Business Recorder show Pakistani startup funding falling from $74 million in 2023 to $37 million by November 2024.

Hiring abroad

Paismo's website lists offices in Philadelphia, Dubai and Hermosillo in Mexico, and the company also offers employer of record and contractor of record services. An employer of record becomes the legal employer of staff that a client hires in a country where the client has no company, and handles onboarding, local compliance and payment. In March 2025 Business Recorder reported that Paismo operated in the United States, Pakistan, Mexico and Ethiopia.

Our view is that this changes the business. A subscription company sells the same code to every customer. An employer of record carries contracts, tax filings and employment liabilities in each country, which brings lower margins and more legal risk in exchange for larger contracts. Payroll rules on tax and social security also differ by country, so every new market needs its own rules built and kept current. The common problems Mahmud describes are the easy part, and the compliance work is where countries differ.

Paismo was a top 12 finalist in the Rocket Fuel competition at LEAP 2025 in Saudi Arabia. In March 2025 it named Kenya as the first market of its wider global expansion.