Hyderabad: Darwinbox , India’s fastest growing enterprise Human Resource Management (HRMS) platform, has recently concluded a $4 million Series A funding. Lightspeed India Partners led the round along with participation from Darwinbox’s existing investors Endiya Partners, Mohandas Pai’s 3one4 Capital and Startupxseed Ventures. The company had raised its pre-series A round less than a year ago.
Jayant Paleti, Co-founder of Darwinbox says, “The world’s largest enterprises are increasingly thinking of HR platforms not just as systems of record but as systems of intelligence to propel their human resource agenda. There is a strong, ever increasing demand for a modern technology suite that will address these needs. With this capital raise, Darwinbox will continue to expand its core technology, product and go-to-market capability across India and internationally.”
Darwinbox’s cloud-based end-to-end HRMS platform automates HR processes across the entire employee lifecycle – managing recruitment, onboarding, core HR, time and attendance, expense management, payroll, employee engagement, performance management and people analytics. Their easy-to-use interface with high degree of configurability to suit local enterprise context has helped them acquire a large customer base within a short time.
Co-founder and Product Head of Darwinbox, Chaitanya Peddi says, “We have built an integrated, functionally deep and flexible application suite capable of handling organizations of all sizes and complexities. We will continue to invest in areas such as Big Data, machine learning coupled with latest research in HRM and psychology to maximize the value we offer to our clients while staying relevant and ahead of the competition.”
In the last one year, Darwinbox has added 50+ companies and 100,000+ employees across verticals such as technology, pharma, healthcare and logistics. The company’s marquee clients include Paytm, Nivea, Godrej CDPL, Delhivery, Sai Life Sciences, Swiggy and Hetero Pharma . Darwinbox operates on a SaaS model which allows companies to only pay as they use.
Speaking about Darwinbox, Suraj Saharan, Co-founder of Delhivery said, “The first thing that strikes you when you see Darwinbox is its simplicity in design; a refreshing change from the norm. We wanted a platform that can adapt to our frequently changing needs and Darwinbox has been the right choice. We were confident of the team’s ability and their vision for the product. This funding is a testament that there are other independent groups who believe in them and want to partner with them in their journey.”
Sohini Dutt, Director and Head Human Resources, Nivea said, “Refreshing to see a HRMS solution which is simple, intuitive and easy to navigate. We wanted technology to work for us and make our processes more robust. The platform provided us the flexibility to build modules configurable to our internal requirements.”
Darwinbox’s product is targeted at mid to large sized enterprises, where it typically competes with the likes of SAP, Successfactors and Oracle Fusion. Darwinbox differentiates itself from competition through its easy-to-use interface, functional depth, faster implementation cycles and unique new-age features (e-Onboarding, Merit Planning, Continuous Feedback, Performance Journals, insightful analytics).
“At all sizes and in all industries, businesses succeed when their employees and managers are engaged for maximum productivity and potential. As a result, human capital management software is core to the success of every business,” said Dev Khare, Partner at Lightspeed India Partners Advisors. “Darwinbox is leading the charge in taking human capital management beyond the HR department to all employees with a highly user-friendly and configurable user experience. We are thrilled to partner with Rohit, Chaitanya, Jayant and their team,” he continued.
The founders Jayant Paleti, Rohit Chennamaneni, Chaitanya Peddi are IIT/IIM/XLRI alums and had worked across companies like Mckinsey, Google, EY and Deloitte before founding Darwinbox.
Sateesh Andra, MD, Endiya Partners says, “HR Technology is leading the SaaS and Cloud adoption, which has a steady growth of over 30% YoY, in India. In this rapidly growing market, Darwinbox expertly combines local customer knowledge with Global standards in Design, Engineering and Product Marketing which gives them an advantage in Indian SaaS business when competing with Global Players.”
Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy said, “Moving to Darwinbox has made us wonder how we survived before it happened, the product is comprehensive, built with great attention to detail and is highly differentiated from most other HRMS products in the market.”
Mohandas Pai investing via 3one4 Capital, says, “At a time when the fundamental principles of human resource management are rapidly evolving in India, the team at Darwinbox has leveraged platform-scale technologies and latest compliance frameworks to help their customers become more people-centric. By reimagining multiple workflows across HR, Darwinbox has unlocked several new strategies for tangible productivity improvements.”
