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Humi
Kevin Kliman's Humi provides payroll, benefits, and HR software purpose-built for Canadian small and mid-sized businesses, operating from Toronto since...
Humi
Kevin Kliman and Simon Bourgeois founded Humi in 2016 in Toronto, backed early by Y Combinator's Winter 2017 batch. The company originated with a focused payroll compliance product for Canadian businesses before expanding into a broader people-management platform. Unlike US-centric HR platforms that retrofit Canadian tax and employment law, Humi was built for the provincial and federal regulatory patchwork from day one. Humi operates as a vertically integrated HR, payroll, and benefits platform. Its product stack spans payroll processing, group benefits administration, time-off tracking, employee onboarding, and document management. The company does not operate as a fund or deploy direct investment capital; it generates recurring SaaS revenue from small and mid-sized Canadian employers. Confirmed integrations include partnerships with major Canadian benefits carriers and financial institutions, enabling embedded insurance and retirement savings products within the platform. Geographic coverage is concentrated in Canada, serving English and French-speaking workforces across all provinces. Humi has raised venture capital from a syndicate of Canadian and US investors, including Tribe Capital and Kensington Capital Partners. In May 2021, the company secured a strategic credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank to expand its lending product for small business payroll (per BetaKit, May 2021). The firm has grown through acquisition, most notably purchasing Ameego, a scheduling software provider for the restaurant and hospitality sector, in 2022 to extend its reach into shift-based workforces. The company concurrently launched a charitable arm, Humi.org, focused on supporting Canadian non-profits with free or discounted access to its HR tools. Humi's structural distinction lies in its payroll-led bundling strategy. By anchoring the relationship in mission-critical payroll processing, the platform creates high switching costs that competitors offering standalone benefits or HR tools cannot replicate. This architecture gives Humi a distribution advantage in a market where the largest incumbent, ADP, serves enterprises, leaving a fragmented mid-market to legacy processors and manual workflows.
General information
Firm type
Asset Manager
Year founded
2016
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
Canada
City
Toronto
Corporate office
Toronto, ON, Canada
Principals
Kevin Kliman
Co-founder & CEO
Simon Bourgeois
Co-founder & CTO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
What does Humi's product actually do?
Humi combines payroll processing, group benefits administration, time-off tracking, employee onboarding, and document management into a single platform. It targets Canadian businesses with 5 to 200 employees, replacing fragmented point solutions with an integrated subscription. The payroll module is the anchor product, handling Canadian federal and provincial tax remittances alongside direct deposit.
Who backs Humi financially?
Humi has raised multiple venture rounds, with publicly disclosed investors including Y Combinator, Tribe Capital, and Kensington Capital Partners. In May 2021, Silicon Valley Bank provided a credit facility to support Humi's payroll lending product for small businesses. The company has not disclosed total funding or valuation publicly.
How does Humi differ from US-based HR platforms like Gusto or Rippling?
Humi was built exclusively for Canadian employment standards, tax codes, and benefits infrastructure. Unlike Gusto or Rippling, which added Canadian support as a secondary market, Humi's entire architecture treats Canadian federal and provincial payroll requirements as the primary workflow. The platform also supports French-language compliance for Quebec-based workforces.
Does Humi operate any investment funds or family office activities?
No. Humi is a venture-backed software company. It generates revenue from software subscriptions and does not deploy capital into portfolio companies, nor does it operate as a family office or investment vehicle. Altss records classify it as an asset manager in error; it is an operating technology company.
What industries does Humi primarily serve?
Humi serves a broad cross-section of Canadian small and mid-sized businesses. Following the acquisition of Ameego in 2022, the company deepened its footprint in the restaurant and hospitality sector with scheduling-specific tools. Other verticals with significant adoption include professional services, technology companies, and non-profits.
Who runs the company?
Co-founder Kevin Kliman serves as CEO and leads the company from Toronto. Simon Bourgeois, co-founder and CTO, oversees product and engineering. Both were listed as the company's named principals in Y Combinator's original investment announcement and continued to lead through subsequent venture rounds.
What is Humi.org and how is it structured?
Humi.org is a charitable initiative launched by the company to provide free and subsidized access to Humi's HR software for Canadian non-profit organizations. It operates as a separate legal entity with its own governance, though the parent company contributes technology and operational support. Specific grant sizes or non-profit adoption numbers have not been publicly disclosed.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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