SaaS unicorn Darwinbox opens new global headquarters in Hyderabad, plans IPO in 3 years

Human Resources (HR) tech software service provider Darwinbox has opened a new global headquarters in Hyderabad and plans to hire around 300 employees in the next six months, taking the total workforce in the city to 1,000.

“The new 1000-seat site spanning 75,000 ft. will empower the brand’s consistent business growth globally while enabling it to further tap into local talent,” said Darwinbox’s cofounder Rohit Chennamaneni during the virtual media meet on Monday.

The HR tech firm presently has 1,200 employees across India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the UAE, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and the United States.

“The new workforce will be added over the next six months and they will mostly be in the areas of product and engineering, we will also look to hire more people in the design and data science spaces,” Chennamaneni said.

“Moving into our new Global HQ marks another important milestone in our growth journey. This move will help us actualize our ‘from Asia to the world's vision and support our ambitious plans to double business by 2023,” he added.

The SaaS unicorn is planning to go for an IPO in the next three years and charts plans to turn profitable by FY2024. In FY2021, the company reported a revenue of $3.3 million, as per the filings with the RoC.

“We are planning to go for an IPO in the next three years…We are working towards turning profitable by FY24,” Chennamaneni said.

Darwinbox is also eyeing newer markets and expansion including Europe and Latin America.

“We have a very strong presence in India, Southeast Asia, and in the Middleeast…The US is another market where we are looking to expand further and significant investment and expansion will happen in newer geographies such as Japan, Australia, and Newzealand in the next year,” Chennamaneni said.

Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox currently serves 700 clients and 2 million users from large conglomerates, technology giants, and global brands like JSW, Adani, Vedanta, Mahindra, Kotak, NSE, Ujjivan, Makemytrip, Swiggy, Nivea, Starbucks, and Dominos.

The firm offers a cloud-based HR Technology platform that caters to an organization’s HR needs across the employee lifecycle including Recruitment, Onboarding, Core transactions (Leaves, Attendance, Directory), Payroll, Travel and Expenses, Employee Engagement, Performance Management, Rewards & Recognition, and People Analytics.

In January 2022, the firm closed its Series D, Unicorn round of $72 million funding led by Silicon Valley-based TCV, and supported by previous investors. Existing investors, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital India, Salesforce Ventures, 3One4 Capital, Endiya Partners, and SCB 10X also participated in the round. The firm is also in talks with IT giant, Microsoft Corporation for an investment of around $4 million.

The company has enough funds for the next three years, Chennamaneni said.  “At this point, we have the funding for the next three years and we may raise pre-IPO funds if let’s say the newer markets need more expansion and growth.”

The cofounder said that there has been a slight slowdown in the businesses in the US, however, India and Asia's business has remained largely unaffected is still the biggest market. “Asia and especially India is the biggest market for us so there is no impact on that front, however, in some pockets in the US we have seen a slowdown. How it affects us is that our sales cycles got a little longer, our pricing advantage becomes lower in the tech space,” he said, adding that segments like pharma, banking and manufacturing remain strong.