HR Technology Platform Darwinbox Raises $15 Mn From Salesforce VenturesThe platform aims to accelerate digital HR adoption, deepen product offering and further its mission to become the market leader in the HCM space

Asia's cloud-based SaaS enterprise HR technology platform Darwinbox on Tuesday announced it has raised $15 million in a 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 3One4Capital, bringing the total investment in the company to $35 million.

The company revenues have grown by over 300 per cent since the last round of funding.

The HR technology platform caters to an organization's HR needs across the entire employee lifecycle including recruitment, onboarding, core transactions, payroll, travel and expenses, employee engagement, performance management, rewards and recognition, and people analytics.

"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."

Founded by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and RohitChennamanen, the company's new-age, hire-to-retire human capital management (HCM) platform helps enterprises empower, engage, and elevate the potential of their workforce.

"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," pointed 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."

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, said the statement.

"Over the past years, we have 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," shared Chaitanya Peddi, co-founder, Darwinbox.

The company 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.

"India is home to one of the world's youngest population, and by 2050, it is expected to account for over 18 per cent of the global working-age population," says Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson, and chief executive officer, 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."

The platform has said to have witnessed a massive surge in adoption during the pandemic. Their integrated product suite comes 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.

"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 has been believed to be home to the world's largest organized workforce and cloud including HCM technology adoption rates in the region are the highest globally and with over 180 implementations done remotely just during the lockdown and a record high revenue growth of 200 per cent, the company has said to have has cemented its place as one of the most preferred HR technology platforms in the APAC region.