Darwinbox, headquartered in Hyderabad, marks another milestone with a $72MN funding round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) along with participation from existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia, Lightspeed, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital. The company’s valuation post this round will cross the $1B mark and takes the total investment raised thus far by the company to over $110Mn. The company has grown 200% since the last fund raise a year ago.
Darwinbox is an enterprise HR Tech company founded by IIM/IIT/XLRI alumnus with work experiences across leading firms like McKinsey, Google, EY etc. The three co-founders, Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni who hailed from the Telugu districts of Guntur, Vijayawada and Karimnagar respectively, came together in November 2015, to build a world-class technology product from Hyderabad for the world.
The company got its first round of funding and immense support from Endiya Partners, a Hyderabad-based Early-Stage VC Fund which focuses on disruptive technology startups.
The Hyderabad headquartered company has 12 global offices with 700+ employees and is expecting it to expand the headcount and its global presence rapidly.
Darwinbox currently stands as the youngest and the only Asian-origin player on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant (largest analyst company in the world) for Cloud HCM. It is also the highest rated (4.8) HR technology platform globally on Gartner. In 2021 the company has reached this position crossing global giants like SAP, Oracle, and Workday on the strength of their innovative technology, deep understanding of the market, user-friendly mobile-app and great customer traction.
“We get most excited investing behind visionary founders that are fundamentally transforming large markets.” said Gopi Vaddi, General Partner, TCV. “I am also delighted to back an outstanding team led by Jayant, Rohit, Chaitanya based in my hometown that is doing exactly that in a highly impactful HR technology space. We are happy to partner with them in their journey to global leadership.”
TCV is a leading US based investor, known for backing some of the world’s leading technology brands like Netflix, Facebook, Spotify, Expedia and Airbnb.
Darwinbox powers more than 650 Global Enterprises
Darwinbox’s HR technology powers more than 650 global enterprises. Some of their notable customers, range from Asia’s largest conglomerates to fast-growing technology unicorns including JSW, Adani, Mahindra, Vedanta, SBI General Insurance, Kotak, TVS, National Stock Exchange, Ramky, Aurobindo, Yashoda, Bigbasket, Swiggy, Makemytrip.
“We started with a mission to build smarter and better technology for the modern-day employee.” said Jayant Paleti, Co-founder, Darwinbox. “In the last 6 years, we have grown from a 3 member team to a 700 large organization serving 650+ customers globally. A growth that wouldn’t have been possible without the great work by all the employees who believed in the vision and joined the journey early on. As we scale further and aim for global leadership, we will be looking to add great talent and hire exponentially across all geographies.”
“Today, Indian technology firms are competing and winning at a global level. When I first met Darwinbox 6 years ago, they were one of the very few SaaS technology firms to start in Hyderabad. Since then, we have come a long way. Highly passionate and experienced team along with promising technology talent in the city made them the fastest growing start-up.”, says Sateesh Andra, Managing Director, Endiya Partners. “I strongly believe their journey and the milestone will inspire and lead to many more entrepreneurial ventures from the city”.
The new funding will supercharge Darwinbox’s global expansion plan by allowing the company to accelerate its platform innovation agenda, strengthen its product, engineering, and customer success teams along with scaling its go-to-market presence in South Asia, SEA, and MENA. The company is expecting the overall team to grow by 100% and is also setting up to launch in the US in 2022.