Exclusive: Darwinbox raises $5 Mn fresh funds from SBI

HR tech platform Darwinbox has raised $5 million in an extension of a Series D round from State Bank of India (SBI). This is the first fundraised for the Hyderabad-based company in 2023.

Darwinbox raised around $4 million from Microsoft Corporation in November 2022.

The board at Darwinbox has passed a special resolution to issue 14,523 Series D3 compulsory convertible preference shares (CCPS) at an issue price of Rs 28,105 per share to State Bank of India (SBI) in a consideration of Rs 40.82 crore or around $5 million, the company’s regulatory filing with the Registrar of Companies (RoC) shows.

The company will utilize the proceeds for capital expenditure, marketing, and general corporate purposes, it added in the filing.

As per Fintrackr’s estimates, the company has raised the fresh funds at a flat valuation or a little over a billion dollars. The company has raised over $115 million to date including $72 million in its Series D round in January 2022.

Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox is a cloud-based integrated HR technology product that covers 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 2 million employees across 700 plus organizations and 90 countries. 

While Darwinbox is yet to disclose its financials for FY22, it registered 93% growth in its revenue from operations to Rs 53.3 crore in FY21. As per the annual financial statement with the RoC, the company’s losses surged around 36% to Rs 8.7 crore during the same period.

As per a media report, Darwinbox is planning to onboard 500 more people for its various offices globally within a year and is likely to go public in the next three years.