Darwinbox – The Leading HR Management Software for New-Age Workspaces!

In recent years, the basic structural design of business organizations has changed dynamically in India which made the option of outsourcing HR functions impossible for start-ups & other businesses, especially those who aim to drive employee engagement and retention since each HR process related to employee specifies a lot about their employee engagement & retention.

Therefore, Darwinbox is a new-age disruptive start-up that offers a mobile-first, cloud-based HRMS platform built primarily for small & medium enterprises to attract, engage & nurture human resources. With its wide range of products & services, Darwinbox offers an end-to-end integrated HR system that helps in streamlining activities across the complete employee lifecycle from Hire to Retire, including automation of employee lifecycle comprising functions like recruitment, onboarding, attendance, expense management, payroll, employee engagement, performance management, and people analytics.

Founded by Chaitanya Peddi, Rohit Chennamaneni, and Jayant Paleti in September 2015, Darwinbox has its headquarters in Hyderabad, India, and in San Francisco, the USA with a presence in over 90+ countries across the world. After raising a sum of $72M from Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) on Jan 24, 2022, the HR start-up turned into a unicorn with a valuation of $1B.

With a long list of 650+ clients and over 1.5M users which include names like Adani, Delhivery, and Cure.Fit, Kotak Life Insurance, Myntra, Paytm, Swiggy, Bisleri, Mahindra, BTPN, Lenskart, TVS, etc. across more than 90 nations and 12 global offices.

Darwinbox is the leading provider of cloud-based Human Resources Management Software (HRMS) with 700+ employees worldwide. Due to its efficient services & innovative products, Darwinbox has been named the Customers’ Choice in the 2022 Gartner Peer Insights ‘Voice of the Customer Report for Cloud HCM Suites and Cloud Solutions of the Year 2018.

Darwinbox – About & How does it work?

Darwinbox is the fastest growing technology company that provides cloud-based integrated HR management and analytics platform for businesses. The platform offered takes care of all HR needs across the employee life cycle including recruitment, core transactions (leave, attendance, and directory), payroll, employee movement, employee engagement, talent management, and people analytics.

The UI of Darwinbox is a one-stop solution for all the technical HR requirements& what’s more the products & offerings could be configured as per the company’s needs, which could even be used by a non-tech savvy user, which are way easier & efficient solutions for everyday tasks and requests.

The Darwinbox app dashboard offers two-way access to the company employees & administrators. On the employees’ end, the users could make leave requests, request status updates, and could follow up on the assigned instructions along with applying for everyday needs such as reimbursements, overtime, salary slips, etc.

Whereas on the admin end, the employers could update leave cycles, and holiday calendars, approve/negate applications, and handle update the employee performance appraisals, etc. within a single interface to ensure a very transparent and objective process in the organization, etc. among others.

Apart from its all other features, its intuitive and intelligent capabilities for employee engagement have set it apart from its rivals as it allows the employees to engage with each other and comment anonymously and otherwise in addition to offering one-way communication with the HR department through its inter-organizational social network platform called ‘Vibe’.

Similarly, there is another dashboard named ‘Pulse ‘which works in accordance with a mood board that allows the organization to review employee performance, how their day is going, biometric integration, and location-based mobile app, etc. thus helping them to achieve a truly flat organizational structure by cutting all the layers of hierarchy within an organization.

Darwinbox – Mission & Vision

In a complex market like India, which is either dominated by specialized HR solutions while solving each of the individual aspects of HR or by legacy ERP solutions, Darwinbox primarily envisions itself as a new age end-to-end HR platform with an objective to disrupt the HR industry with a one-stop solution with its functionally-deep, as it caters to all the analytical requirements of the HR department.

Further, the start-up intends to build intuitive &integrated across all facets of HR which could not only cater to the requirements connected with the operational/tactical workflows in the HR domain but also helps businesses to engage their employees over multiple channels.

Darwinbox – Founders & the Team

Chaitanya Peddi

Chaitanya Peddi is the Co-founder & Product Head at Darwinbox. He completed his Bachelor in Electrical Engineering from JNTU College of Engineering, Hyderabad which was followed by a PGDM from XLRI Jamshedpur. He started his career as a product development Analyst in Verizon Communications and went on to work as a Senior Consultant, in Business Advisory Services at EY before finally co-founding Darwin box in 2016.

Rohit Chennamaneni

Rohit Chennamaneni is yet another co-founder at Darwinbox who completed his Bachelor in Technology from Vellore Institute of Technology followed by a PGDM from IIM, Lucknow in 2012. After which, he started his career as an Associate and Engagement Manager at Mckinsey & Co.for almost four years, before finally co-founding Darwinbox.At Darwinbox, he manages functions like Operations, Investment, Customer Success, and Expansion Strategy.

Jayant Paleti

Jayant Paleti is the other co-founder of Darwinbox who completed his Bachelor of Engineering from IIT Madras & completed PGDM from IIM Lucknow in 2010, during which he also completed CFA. He started his career as a Consultant for Deloitte India and subsequently worked for around 4 years before finally co-founding Darwinbox in India.

Darwinbox – Story of Inception

In 2014, Jayant Paleti was working on an M&A deal at EY, during which he was involved in Research & Development. Interestingly, he discovered that the promoter was under the impression that the attrition rate in his company was around 10-12%, which in actuality turned out to be around 22%. Thus, he observed that a good HR system was absent in place. The problem was intensified further when he came to learn the fact that the company was using three different HR software, which caused further miscalculations & confusion.

This gave Jayant the initial push to develop a product that could resolve all such issues. He called his friends Rohit and Chaitanya to discuss whether it could be possible for them to build a platform that could revolutionize the HR functions and make it something more than just a tactical function. After weeks of meetings & discussions, they decided to create a platform that could offer an integrated solution for-

• All HR functions like payroll, hiring, candidate sourcing, and referral management, employee management with easy documents, analytics, etc. and
• Could offer a multi-pronged solution for employees to get relevant HR information about their organization including its goals & objectives, thus helping the management to plan their roadmap in the company.
• Enable simplification of the regular touch points like leave records, attendance, and payroll and
• Allow employees tovoice their opinions and provide feedback through the right channels.

Cut to the date, Darwinbox is the fastest growing HR solution that has ushered a wave of revolution in the HR Tech market owing to its path-breaking approach towards enterprise technology.Currently, the product caters to 1.5M+ end users across major enterprise clients in India which includes some major corporates.

Darwinbox – Business & Revenue Model

Darwinbox is a start-up focused on offering cloud-based Human Resources Management Software (HRMS) solutions which include the entire lifecycle (hire-to-retire) with a smarter, simpler & mobile-first HR Tech experience powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML), to start-ups, medium & large enterprises giving a tough competition to software like SAP & Oracle with more than 650+ clients & 1.5M users it has received strong feedback from the market and has marquee clients like Delhivery, Ekart, Sai Life, Swiggy, Voonik, Nivea, Lenskart, etc.

With a new-age enterprise-focused HR Technology suite, Darwinbox engages and empowers its corporate clients to cover entire facets of HR functions. Not only has it helped to perform the operational/tactical workflows in the HR domain, but it has also helped to create a strong network of communication for the administration & employees to connect over multiple channels.

Considering the dire necessity of hiring talented manpower in business organizations, Darwinbox also helps its clients to smoothen the process of talent acquisitions through its onboarding module through which a company can directly interface with a potential candidate and even undertake background verifications reducing the efforts & time involved in manual processes like tracking, physical documentation, and data background verification vendors into the system.

Speaking of its revenue model, Darwinbox generates its business revenues through subscription plans which are charged flexibly based on ‘per employee per month and through a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Since the products & services are based on its SaaS model, the start-up doesn’t charge any large upfront costs/license fees or the need to invest in a costly IT infrastructure.

Darwinbox – Expenses & Revenues Breakdown

According to the start-up, it is in a profitable position & is expected to achieve profitability on a company level by 2025. According to Chennamaneni, the annual revenue of Darwinbox doubled last year reaching $49M as compared to FY20 when it had reported revenues of Rs 24.27Cr. on a standalone basis with a loss after tax of Rs. 5.84 Cr during the year.

Presently around 75% of the total business revenue of Darwinbox comes from India while the remaining 25% comes from other countries in the Middle East & Asia. However, in the coming years, the start-up expects India and Southeast Asia to contribute 35% each to its total revenues, with 20% coming from the Middle East and 10% coming from the US.

Darwinbox – Funding & Investors

To date, Darwinbox has raised a total of $107M in funding over 7 rounds. Their latest funding was raised on Jan 24, 2022, from a Series D round which was led by TCV ventures.

Provided below are the highlights of the revenues generated during the period-

On Jan 24, 2022, after raising a funding of $72M in a Series D funding round the start-up round was led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), along with participation from existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital among others, Darwinbox became the first software as a service (SaaS) company to turn unicorn in 2022 and the third start-up in overall this year.

Darwinbox – Growth & Challenges

Being in an industry where sales decisions are in a large company takes about four-six months for closure, it has been a humble achievement to attain a client base of 90k employees in less than a year of going live.

Darwinbox achieved its growth out of its innovation & intuitive performance, out of which it received strong feedback from the market and has marquee clients like Delhivery, Ekart, Sai Life, Swiggy, Voonik, Nivea, Lenskart, etc.The start-up began with three founders and a team of 40 and now boasts a team of 700+ employees in 12 global offices & is expecting to expand the headcount of its global presence after it started with the MENA region.

Rohit Chennamaneni remembers “For Darwinbox, everything changed after it onboarded its first client, Delhivery. It was a big win for the start-up & promoted solely based on word-of-mouth.In earlier days, when no one was baking Darwinbox, the internet start-ups became its first clients, and just by letting their work speak for itself, they got their bigger clients reaching 500+ clients last year including established corporates like Adani Wilmar, Emcure, Kotak, Mahindra & Mahindra, Dr. Reddy, etc. and unicorn start-ups like Myntra, Swiggy, InMobi, Delhivery & Paytm.

Further, Darwinbox was quick to change its strategy & include add-ons in its model after most of the businesses adopted a remote /hybrid model during & post global pandemic. Like other tech-Startups, Darwinbox also benefitted from the pandemic, during which it grew its client base from 180 to 500 clients which presently stands around 650.

Challenges Faced

1. Clients Acquisition– Even after working hard to create an innovative product, the founders found it harder to convince customers about the product, since it was talking to larger enterprises who were using products of established businesses like SAP, Oracle & Workday, and the giants in the space. Thus, they decided to start with internet start-ups which made all the difference.
2. Hiring & Retention of Employees – The next challenge faced by this HR tech-unicorn was the fact that when it was starting, people were reluctant to join the team as an employee having their reservations about good career paths, or good salary packages as compared to bigger corporates. But later when the internet start-ups came along, they didn’t have any difficulty in terms of funds & people were prepared to believe in a fellow start-up like Darwinbox.

The start-up has been globally recognized for its products& services. Gartner’s Magic Quadrant report acknowledged Darwinbox as one of the few HRM vendors that offered its vendors that offered a lightweight10MB mobile app for use in regions with lower bandwidth highlighting its market awareness & technical execution and has even been recognized as the youngest & the only Asian company to feature on the Gartner Quadrant for Cloud HCM suites 2021.

Darwinbox – Key Competitors

• Keka
• GreytHR
• Qandle,
• Wallet HR,
• Pocket HRMS and
• HROne – HRMS.
• ZingHR,
• MindTickle, and
• SumHR

Darwinbox – Marketing Strategies & USP

Highly User-Friendly & Configurable User Experience –

Since the human capital management software is core to the success of every business, business functions do succeed when their employees and managers are engaged for maximum productivity and potential. Thus, Darwinbox is leading the charge in taking human capital management beyond the HR department to all employees with its intuitive, highly user-friendly, and configurable user experience.

Targeting a wider variety of Audiences –

The founders of Darwinbox were wary of this parallel path & meticulously chose their target customer to whom they would offer flexible services to customers at reasonable prices for internet start-ups apart from large customers as compared to the bigger players who were looking for their high-end clients only, and Delhivery became their first client. Once the shift to cloud technology intensified during the pandemic, the company gained as many as 180 large enterprise clients clocking a 200-300% revenue growth, which reached up to 500 clients in 2021.

Offering a wider variety of Products –

The HR industry is highly competitive in nature. Therefore, instead of offering one or two products, Darwinbox offered a complete range of HR solutions from Hire –to-Retire tech products that could be used for an intern as well as an employee of the company.

Introduction of Mobile Apps –

While legacy players like SAP, Oracle & workday were all desktop-first products that started with mature tech markets, in developing economies like India & South-East Asia, around 40% of the customers were projected to make use of HRM applications on mobile devices and the proportion was even higher for field employee intensive industries like manufacturing,pharma & retail. Each of these fell under the list of strong suits of DB.

Entrepreneurial & Customer-Oriented –

DB is entrepreneurial & customer oriented as it worked on the strategy to go way beyond a simple HRM suite.The holistic approach allowed customers to use the same platform to buy easy add-ons ranging from workforce management to talent acquisition to remote working suites.

Consistent Innovation –

DB has constantly adopted & innovated itself such as mobile & Whatsapp functionality for the HRMS suite, facial recognition, capability for workforce management suite & voice bots for the platform across the solution suite.

 Darwinbox – Future Plans

In the coming years, Darwinbox plans to use the fresh funds to fulfill its aim of becoming the number one player in the HR industry from its current third position in the market and strengthen its position in the go-to-market presence in South Asia, SEA, and MENA.The company already launched its business by opening its first office in the MENA region in Jan this year, and the start-up is investing in its product development for launching its mobile app later this year. It is also aiming for a 400% business growth & and around a $12M increase in its overall revenue by the end of this year.

On expanding product investments, Chaitanya Peddi, Co-founder & Product Head at Darwinbox says “the start-up is looking to invest in newer & latest technologies to deliver a rich experience, especially for those who have chosen for flexible options like work-from-anywhere model. Additionally, the start-up is trying to boost its offerings with a range of ancillary services and solutions which the clients could plug and play to create an extensible and integrated HR tech ecosystem.