Firmin Zocchetto grew up in Laval, in north-west France. In high school he and Ghislain de Fontenay built a social network for learning languages. His family came from Italian immigrants who ran construction businesses.
He enrolled at ESCP in Paris and started preparing a company with de Fontenay and Florian Fournier while still a student. He dropped out to run it. Payfit was incorporated on 14 September 2015 and went after payroll for French small and mid-sized companies.
Early money came fast. Kima Ventures, TheFamily and Thibaud Elziere put in about €0.5 million in January 2016, and Otium Venture and Xavier Niel added €5 million that year. Accel led €14 million in 2017, and Eurazeo and Bpifrance joined a €70 million round in 2019.
In January 2022 a €254 million round valued Payfit at €1.82 billion. Funding for software companies then slowed, and Payfit moved toward running payroll for clients as a managed service. By July 2026 it was profitable, with about 22,000 client companies and annual recurring revenue near €80 million.