Darwinbox Success Story | How is This HR Tech Startup Revolutionizing the Human Resource Industry?

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The human resource department is present in every organisation. Its role is crucial for keeping an organisation balanced as they take care of its employee hiring process, performance appraisal, and payroll and determines what different policies and strategies should be applied in contributing to the success of an organisation.

To elaborate broadly, human resource management can have multiple responsibilities and functions to carry out. Over the years, human resource management (HRM) has evolved to adapt to the changing needs of employees in a company.

Today, top companies have special Human Resource Management Software to keep things in a systematic manner and efficiently aid in the data management of employees and various other HR processes. Moreover, it is the HR tech that the companies are embracing to bring a new change in the work culture.

Darwinbox is one of the leading cloud-based Human Resource Management Software (HRMS). The company has its headquarters in Hyderabad with various other offices located across India, and other countries like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, UAE, and the USA.

Read on further to know about Darwinbox's industry details, founders, business and revenue model, funding and investors, and many more.

Darwinbox - Company Highlights

Darwinbox - About and How Does It Work?
Darwinbox - Industry
Darwinbox - Founders
Darwinbox - Startup Story
Darwinbox - Name, Logo, and Tagline
Darwinbox - Mission and Vision
Darwinbox - Business and Revenue Model
Darwinbox - Funding and Investors
Darwinbox - Awards and Achievements
Darwinbox - Competitors
Darwinbox - Future Plans

Darwinbox - About and How Does It Work?

Founded in 2015, Darwinbox is a SaaS platform engaged in providing a better, simpler, and mobile-first HR Tech experience driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning, and empowers workers across the full lifecycle (hire-to-retire).

At present times, the company serves over 650 enterprises including Adani, Kopi Kenangan, MatchMove, Mahindra, Bank BTPN, TVS, Shakey's, JSW, Bank Danamon, Nivea, Swiggy, Tokopedia, JG Summit Group, NutriAsia, Indorama, and others, and have over 1.5 million workers in 90+ countries.

Darwinbox has a new-age platform designed to provide enterprises with automated day-to-day HR processes that simplify human interactions and deliver quality insights to help build better workplaces both for the organisation and employees.

Darwinbox - Industry

Darwinbox belongs to the IT services and IT consulting industry. All of us are aware that the IT industry is like the backbone of any company, without which no company can stand tall and strong. It is reported that the marketplace for technology and information technology consulting services in India is projected to be worth $48 billion, accounting for approximately 20% of the overall worldwide consulting industry.

According to the latest Emeregen Research, the global Human Capital Management market size was $18.04 billion in 2020 and it is expected to deliver a revenue CAGR of 7.9% till the year 2028.

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Darwinbox - Founders

Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni are the founders of Darwinbox.

Chaitanya Peddi

Chaitanya Peddi is one of the three founders of Darwinbox and is presently performing as its Product Head. Before starting the journey with Darwinbox, Chaitanya worked as a consultant at Ernst & Young in their Business Advisory Services division. His first company, where he worked as an Analyst in Product Development was Verizon Communications. Chaitanya has an MBA degree in Human Resources from XLRI, Jamshedpur.

Jayant Paleti

Jayant Paleti co-founded Darwinbox in 2015. He presently is the Head of the Sales department at Darwinbox. Jayant got his B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Afterwards, he got an MBA degree in finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He has been associated with EY (Ernst & Young) for almost four years. Prior to this, he worked at Deloitte for one year. Jayant started by working as a Business Analyst at Modelytics.

Rohit Chennamaneni

Rohit Chennamaneni is the co-founder of Darwinbox and is also currently the head of its operations. Before co-founding Darwinbox, he worked with Google, and McKinsey & Company. He was also an intern at Procter and Gamble. Rohit graduated from the Vellore Institute of Technology and holds an MBA degree from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. He worked in areas such as sales, operations, human resources, and leadership development.

Darwinbox - Startup Story

While working in a corporate firm, Jayant Paleti realised that his company lacked systematic functioning to provide a one-stop solution for the HR department. Soon after, he got over a discussion with Chaitanya and Rohit only to find a common observation that how companies did not have a good HR system. This was an opportunity that spurred the three friends to meet up every day over many rounds of coffee and tea at a local restaurant in Hyderabad.

The three founders worked day and night to study the HR tech market in India to learn about the already available products so that they can come up with a new one. Through many challenges and competition, the Telugu trio experimented with many products intending to launch a product that is more than just a provider of HR solutions by including additional services like asset management, insurance, and digital education.

Darwinbox initially started with one of the most required HR functions by every organisation - attendance and payroll solutions. To add, the founders used their own savings when Darwinbox was established in 2015.

After months of hard work, the company finally raised seed funding in 2016. They raised around Rs 4 crores from investors like Endiya Partners, 3One4 Capital, and many others.

Today, Darwinbox is regarded as the 84th Indian business to join the billion-dollar club, which also includes freshly minted unicorns such as Analytics SaaS and Edtech venture LEAD School.

Darwinbox - Name, Logo, and Tagline

The Darwinbox logo can be defined as a basic but eye-catching logo. It comprises the box symbol, which is intended to be used as Darwinbox's symbol, followed by the company name in its trademark blue and black colour combination.

Darwinbox - Mission and Vision

The vision of Darwinbox is, "Building A Leading Technology Brand From Asia For The World."

Darwinbox - Business and Revenue Model

Darwinbox's business operates on a SaaS model that offers solutions related to the HR needs of an enterprise across the employee life cycle, which includes the six HR modules - payroll, recruitment, employee engagement, talent management, people analytics, and core operations like attendance, leave, etc.

The company's core business operations are to engage and empower employees while automating and streamlining all HR functions. Some of the products & solutions offered by Darwinbox are:

• Employee Onboarding
• Employee helpdesk
• Time & Attendance
• Payroll
• HRMS Suite
• Talent Management Suite
• Performance Management
• Travel & Expense
• Compensation Suite
• Remote Work Suite

Darwinbox has been involved in bringing some innovations to assign employees with much more convenience and allow them to find time to do other things. In short, the company's business also involves providing the best possible user experience to its customers. To name a few, Darwinbox has launched the following creations:

• Mobile HRMS - To help employees on the go with its Mobile-first HR technology.
• A.I in HR -  With the help of Artificial Intelligence, Darwinbox helps to deliver even more insightful decision-making skills.
• Multi-language support - As a global company, Darwinbox's platform is built in a way that supports multiple languages.
• Darwinbox Studio - Provides 200+ seamless integrations to have a secure way of data management. Clients such as Swiggy, Emcure, Kotak Life Insurance, cult.fit, Tata Cliq among others uses Darwinbox Studio.
• HRMS on WhatsApp - To help employees receive notifications for events, leave, attendance, rewards, and recognition through WhatsApp. Darwinbox is the first ever to come up with HRMS to integrate with WhatsApp for Business.

The revenue of Darwinbox stood at $30 million in 2022. The company has announced that its revenue has doubled in comparison to the previous year. Most of its revenue, about 75% is generated from its business in India and 25% from other countries in Asia and the Middle East. It is the only Indian unicorn whose revenue is mainly from India.

Darwinbox - Funding and Investors

Darwinbox has received a total of $107 million in investment over seven rounds. Their most recent funding came in the form of a Series D round on January 24, 2022. The company has received funding from 11 investors. The most recent investors are SCB 10X and Lightspeed India Partners.

The list of funding and investors of Darwinbox is given below:

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Darwinbox - Awards and Achievements

Darwinbox has won the following awards:

• Customers' Choice in the 2022 Gartner® Peer Insights™ 'Voice of the Customer Report for Cloud HCM Suites.
• ‘Rising Star’ and as a product with the ‘Great User Experience’ award by Finances Online (2017).

Darwinbox - Competitors

Darwinbox competes with the following list of competitors:

1. SAP
2. Oracle
3. Ramco Systems
4. Adrenalin eSystems
5. PeopleStrong
6. ADP
7. Workday Human Capital Management
8. Zoho

Darwinbox - Future Plans

The company is planning to expand its operations globally, starting in the USA. Along with its global expansion, Darwinbox further plans to accelerate its product development. It also expects to generate 35% of its total revenue from each of its Indian and Southeast Asia business operations in the future.

“We are looking to enter the US markets this year. It will be a super force multiplier, but could become a substantial contributor to revenue in the next three-four years,” said Jayant Paleti, co-founder and Head of Sales at Darwinbox.

“We will probably get there ($100 million annual revenue) in the next two or two-and-a-half years, and after that IPO is a possibility,” Jayant further said.

FAQs

What does Darwinbox company do?

Darwinbox is one of India's leading cloud-based Human Resource Management Software. The company offers HR Tech experience driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning and empowers workers across the full lifecycle (hire-to-retire).

Who owns Darwinbox?

The owners of Darwinbox are Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni.

Is Darwinbox a unicorn?

Darwinbox turned into a unicorn startup after raising $72 million in a Series D funding round on 24th January 2022.

Who invested in Darwinbox?

Darwinbox has eleven investors out of which the most recent investors are SCB 10X, Lightspeed India Partners, and TCV.

How much funding has Darwinbox raised to date?

Darwinbox has raised a total of $107 million as of August 2022.