On Thursday 28 May 2026, Bloomberg named Jem as one of its 25 Africa Startups to Watch in 2026, and we couldn’t be more excited! Not just because of what it means for us, but because of what it says about the space we’ve chosen to build in and the people we’ve chosen to build for.

Of the 25 companies selected across the continent, Jem is one of just four from South Africa. Eight of the 25 operate in fintech and Jem sits comfortably in that world too. But the category that’s almost entirely missing from the list is HR technology. Only two companies made it, and we’re the only one building specifically for deskless workers.

In a list covering everything from drone defence systems in Nigeria to solar-powered hearing aids in Botswana, we feel proud to represent frontline workforce technology.

“Only 1% of global HR software spend goes towards deskless workers. That gap tells you everything.” – Caroline van der Merwe, co-founder, Jem

The problem people weren’t looking at

Simon Ellis and Caroline van der Merwe started Jem in 2020, originally as SmartWage, to solve a problem most people preferred to ignore: deskless workers’ reliance on loan sharks for short-term credit.

“At the start it was simple,” says Ellis. “Give people a more affordable way to get access to their own money.” For more insights, read our Deskless Worker Pulse 2025 Report.

“Earned wage access does the opposite of looking away,” says van der Merwe. “It acknowledges that this is a sub-optimal situation. The reality for deskless workers is that they genuinely need access to short-term credit. So the question becomes: how do we apply our creativity and entrepreneurial skills to offer them a better alternative?”

The answer was through WhatsApp – a channel every other company was ignoring in favour of building apps.

“Cutting through noise is one of the biggest communication advantages you can have,” says van der Merwe. “Even today, when we talk to our C-level customers, we do it on WhatsApp, because there are a thousand other people emailing them, messaging them on Teams, calling them. If you can get into their WhatsApp, you earn a level of attention you can’t get anywhere else,” she explains.

“Everyone else was building apps. But apps, emails, SMSs, they just don’t really get used by a deskless workforce,” explains Ellis. “If you genuinely need to reach a frontline worker, where do you do it? WhatsApp. It’s already becoming the default way to do almost anything, everywhere,” he adds.

“It doesn’t matter how good your software is for the employer if you can never reach the employee.” – Simon Ellis, co-founder, Jem.

 

Becoming Jem

About a year in, the Jem (then SmartWage) team went back to their customers. Not to sell, but to listen. Ten open-ended interviews, an hour each, just trying to understand what managing a deskless workforce actually looked like day to day. We were helping employees solve short term credit issues, and we wanted to know what to build next. Our EWA product was maturing and we wanted to add more value.

“By the third interview, it was crystal clear that HR and payroll software had completely forgotten the deskless worker. The remaining seven only reinforced that,” says van der Merwe.

The problem was bigger than earned wage access. So the solution had to be too. The company rebranded as Jem in 2022 and the platform began to grow.

For Ellis, Jem’s evolution has been a story of compound interest. “People always want the single moment that changed everything, but it’s hundreds of small things: visits to customers, mistakes, small product improvements, getting the right people in the room and listening to the right customers,” he explains.

 

Turning Jem into a full-suite operating system

Today, Jem works with more than 250,000 employees across 200 companies. The client list spans some of South Africa’s best-known employers, from quick service restaurants like McDonald’s and KFC, to food and beverage brands including Seattle Coffee, Twizza and Capital Caterers, retailers like Edgars and Defy Appliances, security and facilities businesses including Atlas Security and Bidvest and financial services companies like Mukuru.

“Three years ago, our clients logged onto Jem maybe once a month. Today, payroll, finance, and ops managers are logging in every single day, because that’s how much of their employee data flows through the platform. An operating system is the first place you go when you start work in the morning. That’s what Jem has become,” explains van der Merwe.

”A product is one thing that solves one problem, over and over. An operating system is many products working together to do everything you need to get a job done,” says Ellis. “Right now a typical employer is running six to nine different systems to manage their people: HR, payroll, time and attendance, benefits, comms, earned-wage access. None of them talk to each other. Jem brings them into one place, one layer, where everything connects.”

 

The workforce that software builders forgot

Deskless workers make up between 70% to 80% of the global labour force. Security guards, factory workers, baristas, retail assistants, the people who physically keep the economy running. Very little software has ever been built with them in mind.

“Most of us assume knowledge work is the majority of work. It isn’t,” says Ellis. “Around 80% of jobs are done by people who don’t sit behind a computer. When a knowledge worker hears the word work, they picture a laptop and a desk. For most of the world, work is serving coffee, making burgers, building machines, working a mine, securing a building, cleaning a facility. Once you see it, it’s very hard to unsee,” he says.

“We don’t see the person at reception as just a security guard or the barista as just another barista, says van der Merwe. “We see them as unique, complex individuals with their own aspirations, their own career goals, and their own challenges. I wish more people in tech got excited about solving real problems for real people,” she says. Read more on Why Deskless Workers Deserve the Same Employee Benefits as Office Staff.

“This is technology,” says Caroline van der Merwe. “But behind it is a deep love and respect for people, and a desire to improve their lives.”

Starting gun, not finish line

What does the inclusion in Africa’s Top Start-Ups To Watch list actually mean for Jem? “It’s recognition and it’s fuel,” says Ellis. “It tells us the value we’re creating is real and visible from the outside, not just from where we sit. For the brand it’s a signal to the market, to customers, to talent and to investors, that Jem is a company to take seriously,” he explains. “We’ve proved we can build something good, but this list is a marker that something much bigger is possible,” he adds.

”We read this as a starting gun, not a finish line,” says van der Merwe. “Deskless workers have been treated as an afterthought by technology for far too long, and we are here to change that. We’re step one at the bottom of a mountain we still have to climb.”

By 2030, Jem is targeting 1-million workers on the platform, with profitability on track for mid-2027. ”Concretely, I want every worker on Jem to be saving at least R500 a month because of us,” says Ellis. “Through better access to credit, to their own data, to insurance and to better prices on the things they already spend money on. I want Jem to become so foundational to a worker’s life that they’d find it hard to live without, that they stay in a job partly because of it. A worker’s life should be measurably better because Jem exists.” Read more about financial education for deskless workers here.

“I want deskless workers to have agency,” says van der Merwe. “They can receive personalised financial advice, the kind of thing currently only accessible to the wealthy. Technology is a powerful conduit for that change.”

Want to see how Jem works for your team? Book a demo with one of our product experts.