HR tech platform Darwinbox becomes fourth unicorn of 2022

HR tech platform Darwinbox has raised $72 million in its Series D round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) along with participation from existing investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia India, Lightspeed India, Endiya Partners, 3One4Capital, JGDEV and SCB 10X. 

A year ago, DarwinBox had secured $15 million in a round led by Salesforce Ventures, the investment arm of global customer relationship management giant Salesforce.

According to Darwinbox, the company’s valuation post this round will cross the $1 billion mark and take the total investment raised by the company to over $110 million to date.

The new funding will be used to accelerate its platform innovation agenda, strengthen its product, engineering, and customer success teams along with scaling its presence in South Asia, SEA, and MENA, said Darwinbox in a release. The company further added that it is expecting the overall team to grow by 100% and is also setting up to launch in the US in 2022.

Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox is a cloud-based integrated HR technology product that takes care of all HR needs such as recruitment, payroll, employee engagement, talent management and people analytics across the employee life cycle.

The company claims to be the third-largest SaaS-based HRtech firm after SAP and Oracle. According to its website, the platform has serviced over 1.5 million employees across 650 plus organizations and 90 industries. 

Darwinbox has become the first SaaS platform and overall fourth startup to attain unicorn status in the ongoing calendar year. Earlier this month, edtech company LEAD, analytics solutions provider Fractal and Baby and mother care brand Mamaearth had entered the coveted club. Last year 43 startups had raised funding at unicorn valuation and this figure is expected to go beyond 75 in 2022.