HR tech platform Darwinbox has leaped to a unicorn valuation in its latest USD 72 million funding round, with the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region identified as a key growth market in its next chapter of global expansion.
The company’s valuation now crosses the USD 1 billion mark and takes the total investment raised by the company thus far to over USD 110 million.
The latest fundraising round has been led by the US-based Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV) along with participation from Darwinbox’s existing strategic investors Salesforce Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Lightspeed Ventures. The company has grown 200% since the last fundraise from Salesforce Ventures exactly 12 months ago and has added more than 700,000 users on the platform in this short period.
Founded in 2015, Darwinbox’s cloud-based Human Capital Management (HCM) platform caters to private and public sector HR needs across the entire employee lifecycle. Darwinbox supports global brands like Nivea, Starbucks, Sephora, Zara, and AXA, along with Lulu Group, Aramex, and Mobily Infotech in the region.
The new funding will supercharge Darwinbox’s plans by allowing the company to accelerate its platform innovation agenda, and scale its go-to-market presence in MENA, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
“At Darwinbox, we understand that people are at the core of every successful enterprise, and we will work closely with companies across the region to deliver a disruptive, modern, and intuitive experience to their workforce,” said Jayant Paleti, Co-founder, Darwinbox. “With this funding, Darwinbox will accelerate its expansion across the MENA region, aiming for a 400% growth by the end of 2022.”
With its regional office based in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), the company aims to invest aggressively and grow its team in the UAE. It is also staging the opening of its next GCC office in Saudi Arabia in the near future. Prioritising product development for the region, Darwinbox will be launching its Arabic mobile app specifically tailored for MENA employees later this year.
Darwinbox’s HR technology platform helps enterprises realise superior business outcomes by driving higher workforce productivity, better cost efficiency and smarter experiences for the modern-day employees. Built with advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) capabilities, Darwinbox HCM has pioneered innovations such as Voicebot for HR, facial recognition based touchless attendance, and several other features that are critical to manage the post-pandemic workplace.
Chaitanya Peddi, Co-founder and Product Head at Darwinbox, said, “Building for agility and delivering stellar employee experience has been critical in defining success for Darwinbox’s customers. We will continue to invest in new and innovative technology to deliver a frictionless experience for the work-from-anywhere workforce. In continuation to our vision of building a product that prioritises local compliance and context, significant focus has been directed towards product development tailored to the MENA region.”
