Darwinbox, Asia’s Transformative HR Technology Platform Raises Strategic Investment from Salesforce Ventures.

This is one of Salesforce Ventures’ first investments in India. With this partnership, Darwinbox aims to accelerate digital HR adoption, deepen product offering and further their mission to become market leader in the HCM space. 

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Darwinbox, one of Asia’s leading enterprise HR technology platforms, announces the closing of its $15Mn funding round led by Salesforce Ventures. This follows the company’s Series B round raised in September 2019 led by Sequoia Capital India with participation from existing investors Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, and 3one4 Capital, bringing the total investment in the company to $35Mn. The company revenues have grown by over 300% since the last round of funding. 

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“Cloud adoption in Asia is growing at a monumental pace and the pandemic has only further amplified the importance of going digital” said Alex Kayyal, Partner and Head of International, Salesforce Ventures. “Darwinbox is delivering innovation for Asia’s leading enterprises and has emerged as a top platform of choice. We are excited to be a part of Darwinbox’s journey and support them in their mission.” he added.

Founded by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni – Darwinbox’s new-age, hire-to-retire Human Capital Management (HCM) platform helps enterprises empower, engage and elevate the potential of their workforce. Deep understanding of the Asian context,  ease of use (with mobile centricity), high level of configurability and faster time-to-value are key reasons why the product has seen immense traction in the enterprise segment, where they compete with SAP, Oracle and other established vendors.

“We are humbled and honored by the growth we’ve seen as well as the opportunity to partner with leading enterprises to drive their HR transformation agenda. Globally, more and more enterprises are abandoning legacy offerings in favor of our modern,  agile HCM platform that helps them stay ahead of change” says Jayant Paleti, Co-founder, Darwinbox. “We will work with Salesforce closely to maximize value to our customers, continue building out our product stack and accelerate global expansion”.  

Darwinbox’s HR technology powers more than 500 global enterprises with over 1 million employees spread across 60 countries. Some of their notable customers, range from Asia’s largest conglomerates to fast-growing technology unicorns including Adani, Mahindra, Kotak, TVS, Arvind, NSE, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank, Bharti AXA, Dr.Reddy’s, Nivea, Puma, T-Systems, Swiggy, Bigbasket, Delhivery and more. 

“Over the past years, we’ve shipped products at a rapid pace to become the most comprehensive HR suite and pioneered first-of-its-kind innovations to deliver superior employee experience. We will leverage the new investment to speed the introduction of exciting new solutions and advance R&D to deploy deep-technology capabilities.” said Chaitanya Peddi, Co-founder, Darwinbox.

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Darwinbox witnessed a massive surge in adoption during the pandemic. Their integrated product suite also came equipped with solutions that turned out to be critical for the new mode of work including features like touchless attendance, digital rewards, employee engagement, digital hiring and onboarding. With over 180 implementations done remotely just during the lockdown, and a record high revenue growth of 200%, Darwinbox has cemented its place as one of the most preferred HR technology platforms in the APAC region. 

“India is home to one of the world’s youngest population, and by 2050, it is expected to account for over 18% of the global working age population,” says Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO, Salesforce India. “This makes technology platforms like Darwinbox, that focuses on workforces, incredibly important. I’m proud that Salesforce is supporting Darwinbox on their journey as they continue to grow and innovate in this space.”

“We strongly believe that Asia, with its millennial heavy population and a high affinity to mobile-first products, has requirements that western products are unable to serve. As Asian conglomerates, governments, high growth businesses and MNCs operating in Asia witness digital transformation, Darwinbox has become their preferred Human Capital Management solution” said Dev Khare, Partner, Lightspeed India. Asia is home to the world’s largest organized workforce and cloud (including HCM technology) adoption rates in the region are the highest globally. 

Additional Quotes:

“India’s workforce is going through a generational change with 64% of its workers between the ages of 20-35. This young workforce wants to be enabled and empowered with the best technology. The most progressive companies understand this and consistently pick Darwinbox for its innovation and product leadership. In a highly competitive world for talent, Darwinbox has set the bar for what best-in-class HR software looks like,” says Harshjit Sethi, Principal, Sequoia India.

“We have always strived to bring the best to our enterprise customers through our people, technology and processes. The Salesforce partnership will help us learn from the global SaaS leader on best practices across the board to serve our customers better” says, Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founder, Darwinbox

“With the increased velocity of SaaS adoption in Asia, given the new mandate of Digital Workplace and the rising need for process automation, remote engagement and data-driven insights, a majority of the CHROs will turn to Darwinbox to implement strategies in order to deliver on their human capital’s promise. Having been associated from the very beginning, we are excited for this Journey ahead with Darwinbox” said Sateesh Andra, MD, Endiya Partners

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