PeoplePulse Africa, an HR technology platform founded by Adetoun Adele-Muraina and Adetola Abolarinwa, has been developed to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Nigeria transition from informal people management to structured HR processes. The platform emerged from repeated challenges the founders observed while working with growing businesses at Bridgemead Consulting, where they supported recruitment, payroll, performance management, and broader HR functions.
From Informal Practices to Structured HR
Many growing businesses in Nigeria begin with informal people management practices. Leave requests are often handled over WhatsApp, employee information is stored in spreadsheets, and performance conversations occur as needed. These methods may work for small teams, but as businesses expand, recruitment increases, payroll becomes more complex, and tracking employee information becomes harder. The transition from informal to structured HR often does not keep pace with business growth, a pattern the founders encountered repeatedly.
Working directly with founders and business leaders gave Adetoun and Adetola a close view of the realities behind managing growing teams. Many businesses wanted to create better workplaces and establish stronger internal processes but still relied on spreadsheets, WhatsApp, and disconnected tools to manage critical employee information. “We kept seeing similar challenges across different businesses. The teams were growing, but many of the processes for managing people were still manual. At some point, we realised we were helping businesses solve different versions of the same problem,” said Adetola.
Addressing the Infrastructure Gap
The challenge was not necessarily a lack of intent but often a lack of infrastructure, which the founders found was not unique to one organisation. Across different businesses, they encountered variations of the same challenge, and many HR technology solutions available did not necessarily fit where these businesses were in their growth journey. Some platforms were designed primarily for larger organisations with established HR departments and bigger budgets. Others addressed only individual parts of the employee lifecycle, leaving businesses to combine several tools to manage recruitment, payroll, performance, employee records, and other essential processes.
For a small business without a large HR team, adopting technology could create another layer of complexity rather than solve it. “We knew that whatever we built had to reflect how these businesses actually operate. In many cases, HR responsibilities are shared between the founder, an administrator, an operations manager or a very small HR team. The technology had to be simple enough for them to use, affordable and relevant to their reality,” said Adetoun.
Building for Accessibility, Affordability, and Relevance
That experience raised a practical question for the two founders: if they were repeatedly helping businesses solve the same people-management challenges manually, could technology help them solve those challenges at scale? That question became the starting point for PeoplePulse Africa, an HR technology platform designed to help SMEs establish stronger people systems without requiring the infrastructure of a large organisation. The platform is built around three realities: accessibility, affordability, and relevance, reflecting a broader shift in how growing businesses are beginning to see HR—less as an administrative burden and more as a foundation for scale.
Ecosystem Participation and Next Steps
PeoplePulse Africa has participated in programmes within the wider business and technology ecosystem, including the Providus Bank SME Programme and the Village Capital x Standard Chartered Women in Tech Accelerator 2026. The platform is also currently participating in a founder programme by Antler Africa, a venture capital firm. As PeoplePulse moves into its next phase, the focus is on reaching more growing businesses across Nigeria and beyond, while continuing to build for the realities of Africa’s evolving workforce.
