Migrant staff are a crucial labor pressure for U.S. farms, however getting them right here on correct H-2A visas may be sophisticated, and the compliance surrounding these workers is taxing for farms. Seso was based 5 years in the past to assist streamline that course of and now appears to be like to increase right into a one-stop-shop HR platform for the agriculture trade.
Michael Guirguis co-founded the startup after his cousin requested for his recommendation on whether or not or not her natural farm ought to increase. Despite demand for her harvests, Guirguis, whose total profession has concerned job creation and the labor market, instructed her increasing wouldn’t be good as a result of the trade’s labor scarcity would make hiring sufficient staff onerous.. That impressed Guirguis to discovered Seso to automate the H-2A visa course of to assist repair that subject and assist farms keep compliant. Once he began speaking to potential farm prospects, he realized that farms may use much more assist with their HR past simply discovering staff.
“When it comes to the back office, every farm we visited had thousands of filing cabinets,” Guirguis stated. “It’s one of the most laggard industries in the U.S. That was the eye-opening moment. We can address the labor shortage and build an end-to-end modern operating system starting with HR and modernize a lot of these really complex tasks.”
The startup simply raised $26 million to increase its platform’s capabilities. The Series B spherical was led by Bond’s Mary Meeker with participation from Index Ventures, NFX, SV Angels, a number of Seso prospects, and others. The firm doubled its buyer base in 2023 and works with 27 of the biggest 100 agriculture employers within the U.S.
While agriculture is an enormous trade ripe for disruption, it’s been comparatively reticent to undertake new know-how, he stated. Guirguis thinks Seso has been profitable in promoting to farms to this point, when many different startups haven’t been, as a result of Seso isn’t making an attempt to vary the precise farming course of, one thing farmers made clear to him that they weren’t prepared for but. Adopting again workplace tech, is a neater promote.
“Your HR team is in the back office doing traditional HR work,” Guirguis stated. “That is who we are trying to change behavior for, which is easier than for someone 50 years in the field still using pen and paper. They can still keep doing their process we have built products to adapt. You can take a picture of a [hand-written] time sheet and then use AI to make sure that is accurate.”
Guirguis’s give attention to getting suggestions from farmers instantly is what pushed Nina Achadjian, a accomplice at Index Ventures, to speculate. Achadjian initially handed on Seso when it first tried to boost from Index, however how the corporate sells and interacts with farmers modified her thoughts.
“I remember this one customer call, I got chills,” Achadjian instructed TechCrunch. “[He said], ‘I get pitched by these Silicon Valley entrepreneurs all the time and they show up at your farm and they are like, ‘Here is how you should run their business.’ I always ask each of them to come and spend a day and work alongside me so they can understand what is a day in the life of the end customer and they never show up. Michael was the only one who showed up at 4 a.m. in the freezing cold, in the dark, to pick artichokes.’”
That suggestions from farmers is why the corporate is increasing into automating payroll subsequent. Guirguis stated as a consequence of numerous agriculture employment legal guidelines, farm payroll is extremely sophisticated. Workers are paid for a way a lot crop they choose, Guirguis stated and the speed for every crop picked is totally different for a migrant employee versus a home employee and totally different once more if migrant staff and home staff are selecting from the identical area. Guirguis sees quite a few methods to increase after that.
