Effon Khoo founded the online HR/payroll software Kakitangan.com in 2015. Today, the platform actively serves around 10,000 companies and 150,000 employees in Malaysia, facilitating leave applications, claim submissions, time attendance tracking, and payroll processing. Each month, Kakitangan.com processes approximately RM 250 million in payroll, with this figure growing steadily.
In 2016, Kakitangan.com successfully raised a round of equity crowdfunding, famously known as the “RM1 million raise in a day” campaign, attracting 63 investors. This campaign was recognized as Malaysia’s first truly successful equity crowdfunding (ECF) initiative involving more than 10 investors. Digital News Asia highlighted this achievement with the headline, “Kakitangan helps ECF get its breakout moment in Malaysia,” noting how this campaign helped shape the ECF industry in the following years.
Following this success, Kakitangan.com secured additional funding through corporate fundraising from BFM Capital in 2018 and venture capital fundraising from OSKVI in 2021. The journey of Kakitangan.com became a case study on how different types of investors work with startups, each bringing distinct expectations and characteristics.
Before founding Kakitangan.com, Effon Khoo served as a General Manager at NASDAQ-listed CCIH, where he managed a business unit with around 100 employees. He successfully turned the unit from losses to profitability within a year, achieving significant growth. Prior to that, he spent five years in Microsoft Office R&D, working on products such as Office 2010, Office 2013, Office 365, Microsoft OneNote, and Microsoft Lync (now known as Skype for Business) on Android.
Effon also worked as a Technical Consultant at Kofax (now Tungsten Automation, a world-leading data capturing company), collaborating with clients across several countries and eventually establishing a regional office in Shanghai. Earlier in his career, in 2004, Effon founded MyRFID, where he designed RFID solutions for banks.
Effon Khoo began his career as an Executive in Corporate Finance at AmInvestment Bank Berhad, managing IPO projects for technology companies. He holds a Bachelor of Computing and a Master of Information Technology, both from Monash University.
