Confidential · Seed Round · $2.5M Raise · June 2026

The Operating
System for
African Business.

Born from a decade of verified enterprise delivery. 85% platform completion. 200+ qualified enterprise leads. Three integrations to production.

₦3.32B+Gross Managed Volume
10 YrsOperating History
200+Warm Pipeline Leads
300+Mandates Executed
85%+Platform Complete
3Integrations to Go-Live
$10MPre-Money Cap
Platform Preview

CONFIDENTIAL · NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION · 25th and Staffing Limited · © 2026

01 · Platform

What 25th Core Is

The Problem

  • HR records live in spreadsheets. Offer letters in WhatsApp. Leave managed by memory.
  • Finance decisions made over WhatsApp. No real-time visibility on burn rate or cash position.
  • Contracts and compliance documents scattered across Google Drive folders, OneDrive directories, and email threads.
  • Compliance deadlines missed because they are managed informally across emails and messaging apps, not in a structured system.
  • Contracts auto-renew on the landlord's terms because no one tracked the notice period.
  • PENCOM contributions late. CERPAC permits expired. The cost is not just operational, it is strategic.

The Solution

25th Core is the operating system for African businesses, connecting financial health to every operational decision. HR, compliance, facilities, sales, and client management in one platform. Built for Nigeria first. Configured for UK, Ghana, South Africa, and Kenya. No consultant required. Deployable in under a day.

VALIDATED BY

25th and Staffing, Tenant Zero

The first full deployment. ₦3.32B in confirmed transaction history across 9 verified bank accounts, 2015–2025. Statutory net turnover filed with FIRS available on request.

BUILD STATUS

85% built. 149 HTML prototype files. 8.1MB of product.

Every module is built, not described. 12 confirmed modules complete. Three engineer tasks remain before the platform accepts paying clients.

THE MOAT

Knowledge, not technology.

Replicating 25th Core is not a tech problem, it is a knowledge problem. PENCOM due dates, CERPAC expiry windows, service charge notice periods. A decade of institutional knowledge in software.

Governance Principle

System recommends based on industry and best practice. Company chooses. Audit trail permanent. Prior decisions archived, not deleted. The CEO is always in control. The system never decides.

02 · Market

41.8 Million Businesses. Three Segments. One Platform.

1.8M+

SME Market

Registered SMEs operating without a structured HR or operational system. Most run on WhatsApp, Excel, and verbal agreements. Core Standard and Plus are built for this segment, deployable in under a day.

StandardPlus
40M+

MSME & Informal Market

Micro businesses across Nigeria that Workday, SAP, and BambooHR have never reached and have no intention of reaching. Their pricing models exclude 99% of this segment. Core enters at ₦150,000 per month.

Core Lite, Year 2
Existing

Corporate & Enterprise

25th and Staffing has delivered directly to Tech Mahindra, GSM Systems, Bain & Company, and eTranzact. Managed staff deployed across MTN, Cisco, Mavenir, and Airtel. Built on a decade of enterprise-grade delivery.

PremierConcierge

Total addressable market: 41.8 million businesses. No Nigerian software platform combines SME HR infrastructure, MSME-accessible pricing, and an active enterprise recruitment business within a single product.

03 · Key Features

Six Facts That Make Core Uncopyable

These are not differentiators. They are structural barriers. Each one took a decade to build and cannot be purchased, licensed, or replicated at speed.

01
A Decade of Nigeria-Specific Institutional Knowledge
PENCOM deadlines, CERPAC expiry windows, service charge notice periods, authority matrix depth calibrated to Nigerian business structures. This knowledge is encoded into every workflow. Replicating it requires replicating ten years of live operational delivery. That is a time moat, not a technology gap.
02
Tenant Zero Validation
25th and Staffing did not build Core for a market. It built Core for itself. Every module was pressure-tested across real enterprise delivery before a single external client was offered access. The platform is not theoretical. It is the operational residue of a decade of execution.
03
Proprietary AI Engines Built on Ten Years of Placement Data
25th AI Recruiter and 25th Direct are not third-party integrations. They are proprietary engines owned by the parent company, built on ten years of candidate performance data, salary progression records, and placement outcomes. The data is the moat. It cannot be bought.
04
Multi-Jurisdiction Architecture Already Configured
Nigeria active. UK, Ghana, South Africa, and the United States configured. A competitor entering this market today would need 18 to 24 months to configure five jurisdictions correctly. Core is already there. Build time is the moat.
05
Enterprise Governance at SME Pricing
CEO approval queue, authority matrix, board reporting calendar, sub-company structure, document versioning. These features exist in SAP at $500,000 per year. They exist in Core at ₦150,000 per month. No competitor has built this combination at this price point for this market.
06
100 Client Relationships Built on Delivery Alone
Zero paid acquisition. Zero cold outreach at scale. 58 unique clients acquired over ten years entirely through referral and delivery. The 200+ warm leads on the Core waitlist came through the same mechanism. Trust is the moat. It compounds with every mandate closed and cannot be manufactured.

03 · Team

Founder & Existing Team

Emem Usen

Founder & Chief Executive Officer · 25th and Staffing Limited · Lagos, Nigeria

Emem built one of Nigeria's most operationally consistent workforce delivery businesses over a decade without external capital, ₦3.32B Gross Managed Volume, 255 assignments, 58 unique clients. She did not study this market. She ran it. Every feature in 25th Core exists because Emem and her team encountered the problem first in live delivery.

Tech Mahindra GSM Systems Bain & Company eTranzact MTN Cisco Mavenir Airtel
₦3.32B
Gross Managed Volume
255
Placements Closed
58
Unique Clients
10 Yrs
Zero External Capital
Recruitment Unit Economics
Fee Structure
20% – 24%
of first-year gross annual salary
Fee Per Placement
₦1.68M – ₦8.64M
Blended mid-point ≈ ₦4,900,000
Sales Cycle
3 – 4 Weeks
Referral-driven. No cold pipeline.
Client LTV
₦30,625,000
2.5 mandates/yr × 2.5 yr avg relationship
CAC
Near Zero
58 clients. 10 years. Zero paid acquisition.
LTV : CAC
Effectively Uncapped
₦30.6M LTV. Near-zero cash CAC.

Required Headcount, Core Launch (2026)

⚠ All salaries are gross. A 15–20% inflation adjustment should be applied at point of offer, subject to market conditions at time of hire. Roles marked * are offered at net, see footnote.

Executive Leadership
Chief Executive Officer & CVO (You)
₦6,000,000
Gross. Institutional seed-stage leadership, strategic partnerships, investor relations, corporate vision.
Chief Technology Officer
₦2,500,000
Technical vision, architecture, security, AI strategy, and platform governance.
Monthly, Executive₦8,500,000
Engineering Team
Head of Operations & Product ★ Identified
₦2,500,000
Close Risk
Product roadmap, implementation, onboarding, delivery, platform adoption.
Technical Lead, Architecture & Design ★ Identified
₦1,500,000
Close Risk
Technical architecture, solution design, engineering standards, platform design authority.
Technical Lead, Execution & Reliability ★ Identified
₦1,800,000
Close Risk
Engineering execution, scalability, sprint delivery, reliability, production stability.
DevOps Engineer
₦1,850,000
Cloud operations, CI/CD, infrastructure automation, reliability.
AI & ML Engineer
₦1,200,000
Automation, AI workflows, candidate scoring, machine learning initiatives.
Data Engineer
₦1,500,000
Data infrastructure, analytics pipelines, reporting architecture, data governance.
Information Security Engineer
₦1,500,000
Application security, infrastructure protection, compliance, risk mitigation.
QA & QC Engineer
₦1,050,000
System validation, testing, quality assurance, release readiness.
Front End Engineer
₦1,000,000
User interface development across Core and Suite platforms.
Back End Engineer
₦1,500,000
Backend services, APIs, integrations, platform functionality.
Monthly, Engineering₦15,500,000

★ Identified candidates held pending raise close, 30-day close window to avoid losing confirmed profiles. See Candidates section.

Revenue & Growth
Head of Enterprise Sales ★ Identified
₦2,500,000
Close Risk
Enterprise revenue generation, strategic partnerships, commercial growth.
Head of Revenue & Growth
₦1,500,000
Demand generation, marketing strategy, growth architecture, pipeline development.
Growth & Marketing Manager
₦1,150,000
Campaign execution, inbound marketing, lead generation.
Growth / Product Ops Specialist
₦1,000,000
Product feedback, analytics, growth operations, conversion optimisation.
Sales Development Representative
₦600,000
Outbound prospecting, lead qualification, appointment setting.
Enterprise Sales Lead 1
₦1,000,000
Enterprise account acquisition and revenue generation.
Enterprise Sales Lead 2
₦1,000,000
Enterprise account acquisition and revenue generation.
Account Manager
₦900,000
Client relationship management, renewals, account growth.
Social Media Executive ×2
₦450,000 ea
Content creation, engagement, brand visibility.
Content
₦350,000
Content creation, engagement, and brand visibility.
Monthly, Revenue & Growth₦10,650,000
Operations & Working Capital
Customer Success Manager
₦725,000
Client onboarding, adoption, retention, customer success.
Finance Manager
₦1,200,000
Treasury governance, reporting, audit readiness, financial controls.
Senior Accountant
₦800,000
Invoicing, reconciliations, payroll processing, accounting support.
HR Operations Manager
₦1,200,000
Employee lifecycle, compliance, onboarding, offboarding.
Talent Acquisition Specialist ×2
₦500,000 ea
Talent sourcing, candidate assessment, recruitment delivery.
Executive Assistant
₦750,000
Executive coordination, administration, leadership support.
Admin Support 1
₦300,000
Administrative operations and support services.
Admin Support 2
₦350,000
Administrative operations and support services.
Senior Advisor / Security Liaison
₦700,000
Strategic advisory, facility oversight, operational risk mitigation.
Ops Security
₦250,000
Executive transport security, route assessments.
Corporate Driver 1
₦250,000
Staff transportation and logistics.
Corporate Driver 2
₦200,000
Field mobility and transportation logistics.
Monthly, Operations₦7,725,000
Total Monthly Salary (all roles)₦42,375,000
Annual Salary Commitment₦508,500,000
Salary as % of $2.5M raise (approx)~32%

All salaries are gross. A 15–20% inflation adjustment applies at the point of offer, subject to market conditions at time of hire.

04 · Identified Candidates

Confirmed Profiles, Awaiting Close

Full CVs available under NDA on request. Identifying details withheld in compliance with NDPR. These four roles carry close risk, see Risk section.

Head of Operations & Product
₦2,500,000/mo gross · 10+ years · Product & Delivery
AWS-CCP · CSM · CSPO · Salesforce Certified
Senior Product Business Analyst, Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance (2024–present). Delivered product solutions for Life Insurance & Annuities, regulatory compliance, and new product launches.
Business Process Analyst, large staffing organisation (2022–2023). Led ATS, payroll, and billing process improvement; automation and workflow redesign.
HR Business Analyst, led Oracle HRMS implementation at a major Nigerian bank. Partnered with Accenture on HRMS delivery.
MSc Human Resource Management · MSc Health Informatics (in progress) · BSc Computer Information Systems.
Rare profile combining product ownership, HR systems delivery, and staffing operations experience. Understands both the platform and the market it serves.
★ Identified · Held pending raise close · 30-day window
Technical Lead, Architecture & Design
₦1,500,000/mo · 3+ years (senior trajectory) · Engineering
Google Project Management (in progress) · AWS AI/ML Scholar
Sole Frontend Engineer, battery-as-a-service startup, Denmark (2025–present). Architecting real-time telemetry dashboards in React 19 and TypeScript. Full ecosystem ownership.
Promoted from Engineer to Technical Lead within 12 months. Directed end-to-end build of multi-tenant Cooperative-as-a-Service SaaS platform, PRDs, APIs, documentation, stakeholder management.
B.Sc. & M.Sc., Industrial Relations & Personnel Management, University of Lagos.
Operator-mindset engineer. Built SaaS end-to-end as a solo lead. The HR/IR academic background directly maps to the platform he would build.
★ Identified · Held pending raise close · 30-day window
Technical Lead, Execution & Reliability
₦1,800,000/mo · 5+ years · Engineering
Full-stack AI/ML specialisation · NLP pipeline experience
AI/ML Software Engineer, Turing (2025–present). Training, evaluating, and optimising ML models at production scale. Mentoring a development team. Leading MLE-Bench/Kaggle-style workflows.
Full Stack AI Engineer, Manaknight Digital (2024–2025). Automated test suites for AI-powered backend services; CI/CD integration for model-serving endpoints.
Full Stack Developer, media group (2020–2022). NLP pipeline serving 1,000+ daily articles; saved editorial team 30+ hours per week. Distributed training with PyTorch and DeepSpeed.
AI/ML plus full-stack execution. Has shipped real ML pipelines at scale. Fills the reliability and AI-layer role the platform needs from Day 1.
★ Identified · Held pending raise close · 30-day window
Head of Enterprise Sales
₦2,500,000/mo gross · 10+ years · Sales & Marketing
Track record: TELUS International · Tech Mahindra · IBM · Bureau van Dijk
TELUS International, managed $100M+ enterprise portfolio; $35M+ annual pipeline; 92% client retention rate. Contributed to a $100M+ payment integration initiative.
Tech Mahindra (Regional Sales Manager), $8M+ in revenue growth; 30% market penetration increase. Mentored a team of 5 sales professionals. Tech Mahindra is a direct 25th client.
IBM, $25M+ ARR in enterprise security and solution sales; deals of $1M–$5M. Consistent 25% YoY growth. Managed relationships across financial institutions and regulated industries.
Enterprise sales leader with existing relationships inside 25th's own client base. Proven $100M+ portfolio management in the sectors 25th targets.
★ Identified · Held pending raise close · 30-day window

06 · Revenue

Revenue Model & Projections

Standard

₦150,000/mo

1 admin seat · 25 staff records · Core HR, compliance calendar, task system, document vault · Self-serve

Plus Most Popular

₦350,000/mo

5 admin seats · 100 staff records · AI Recruiter (5 sessions/mo) · Payroll · Transport benefit · 24hr support

Premier

₦650,000/mo

10 admin seats · 250 staff records · AI Recruiter (15 sessions/mo) · Full KPI framework · Business Continuity Mode · Named CS contact

Revenue Scale

50
₦18M/mo
₦216M ARR
200
₦72M/mo
₦864M ARR
1,000 (Yr 1)
₦350M/mo
₦4.2B ARR
5,000 (Yr 2)
₦1.75B/mo
₦21B ARR
15,000 (Yr 3)
₦5.25B/mo
₦63B ARR

Partner & Referral Revenue

Commission-based. Zero upfront cost. Activates without additional headcount.

AXA Mansard, Insurance Stanbic IBTC, Pension Shuttlers, Transport Brain Express, Transport Working Capital Financing Invoice Financing

Core Lite, Year 2

WhatsApp-native. Esusu/Ajo integration. Mobile-first for Nigeria's 40M+ informal economy businesses. Workday and SAP have never reached this segment and never will.

Core Retail, Year 3

Supermarkets, QSRs, multi-site retail. Cashier performance, shift rostering, POS integration. Franchise network deployment. Horizontal scale play.

07 · The Ask

$2.5M, Convertible Note

Raise amount$2.5M
InstrumentConvertible Note
Pre-money cap$10M
Discount to next round20%
Maximum investors3
Investor ownership at conversion~20%

Use of Funds

Engineering team37% · $800K–$1M
CS & onboarding16% · $400K
Sales & marketing16% · $400K
Infrastructure (incl. AI)12% · $300K
Legal & compliance6% · $100K–$150K
Working capital16% · $300K–$400K

A detailed procurement plan covering infrastructure, legal, operations, and marketing is available on request.

5-Year Return Projection

Year Clients ARR Val (5x) Stake Return
Year 1 1,000 $2.8M $14M $4.4M 1.75x
Year 2 5,000 $14M $70M $21.9M 8.75x
Year 3 15,000 $42M $210M $65.6M 26x
Year 4 30,000 $84M $420M $131.3M 52x
Year 5 50,000 $140M $700M $218.8M 87x

A detailed procurement plan covering infrastructure, legal, operations, and marketing is available on request.

Base case. Excludes partner revenue, premium modules, and multi-country ARR uplift. Valuation at 5× ARR.

⚠ Close Window: 30 Days

To be live and in the pipeline for enterprise companies seeking agencies in November–December 2026, platform must be operational before November. That means raise close by end of July 2026 at the latest. Four identified candidates are actively held, onboarding targets within 30 days of confirmed close. A delayed raise delays revenue, not the product. The product is built.

08 · Risk Register

Material Risks & Mitigations

HIGH
Key Hire Not Closed on Time
Four identified hires, Head of Ops & Product, 2× Technical Leads, Head of Enterprise Sales, are held pending raise close. Raise delays beyond 30 days create real risk of losing confirmed candidates to other offers.
All four are actively held with direct communication. Onboarding targets within 30 days of raise confirmation, subject to re-vetting. CTO covers technical leadership in the bridge period. Founder manages sales personally for the first 30 days.
HIGH
Raise Delay Risk
A delayed close creates compounding risk: candidates disengage, platform launch slides, 200+ waitlist cools, and the November pipeline window closes. First-mover advantage has a shelf life.
Round is capped at 3 investors. Decision window: 30 days from deck delivery. Platform is 85%+ complete, delay affects revenue, not product readiness.
MEDIUM
Currency / Naira Volatility
Naira depreciation affects USD investor returns and multi-currency revenue reporting.
Certain enterprise contracts benchmarked in USD. UK, Ghana, South Africa revenue from 2027 provides natural currency diversification. Multi-currency architecture built from Day 1.
MEDIUM
SME Willingness to Pay
Nigerian SMEs have historically been slow adopters of paid software. ₦150K/month must be perceived as cheaper than the cost of not having it.
200+ warm leads have expressed payment intent. 10 years of fee collection from this exact market. Pricing calibrated below the cost of one compliance penalty. The subscription pays for itself on the first missed PENCOM deadline avoided.
MEDIUM
Key Person / Technical Concentration
Concentration of platform knowledge in a small team creates delivery risk if a key developer departs pre-scale.
Full engineering specification documented across 167+ product files. A new engineer can onboard without extended CEO briefing. Post-raise team of 12–15 eliminates single-person dependency.
LOW
Competitive Response
A well-funded competitor could attempt to replicate specific modules, particularly HR or payroll.
The moat is not technology, it is a decade of Nigeria-specific institutional knowledge embedded in workflow logic. Replicating the system requires replicating the operational history. That is a time moat, not a code moat.

09 · Market Signal

What the Waitlist Is Saying

200+ named, warm businesses on the 25th Core waitlist. These are not cold leads, they are existing client relationships built over a decade. This is what they say they need.

"Finding and hiring the right person, and managing them under budget.", Additional notes from waitlist businesses on their primary challenge.
"We have some budget. The right price point matters.", On Q2 budget position. Price sensitivity is real but appetite to pay is confirmed.
"All of the above. Still very much there.", When asked what they were hoping to solve when they first reached out to 25th: finding and hiring the right people consistently; managing HR, payroll, and compliance without a dedicated team; getting visibility and structure across their workforce; reducing the cost and time it takes to manage people.

What the Market Needs, Validated Demand

🎯
Find & Hire Right
Consistently. Without spending months on it.
📋
HR Without a Team
Payroll, compliance, and HR ops, automated.
👁
Visibility & Structure
Across the whole workforce. In one view.
View Waitlist Page →

10 · Investor Governance

Post-Close Reporting & Oversight

Investor Portal

Secure login for each investor activates within 7 days of close. Live: MRR, client count, burn rate, runway, and milestone tracking. (changed on first login).

Quarterly Reports

CEO-authored. Delivered before board reviews. Revenue vs target, headcount, platform milestones, risk register updates, next-quarter priorities. Material events notified immediately.

Board Reviews

Scheduled quarterly. CEO triggers publish. Intention to appoint an independent director from within the investor group, subject to mutual agreement. Institutional-grade oversight from Day 1.

Convertible Note Terms

$2.5M · 20% discount to next priced round · $10M pre-money cap · Maximum 3 investors · Funds deploy immediately on close.

This is not a hypothesis.

It is a decade of operational knowledge encoded into software. ₦3.32B Gross Managed Volume. 85% built. 200+ warm leads. Three integrations to go-live.

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Contact Emem

Emem Usen · Founder and CEO · 25th and Staffing Limited

CONFIDENTIAL · NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION · SEED ROUND · $2.5M · © 25th and Staffing Limited 2026