Highlights:

  • Darwinbox ventured into the US market the last quarter and prior marked its presence in the Middle East.
  • Founder believes that hitting USD 100M Annual Run Rate (ARR) will be feasible in the next two years with the partnership.

As a part of strategic financing, Microsoft invested in Darwinbox, a Sequoia-based HR tech unicorn. However, the figures of investment are yet to be disclosed. Darwinbox is going to be the first Asian HR tech SaaS-based platform to partner with Microsoft and integrate with latter’s product ecosystem. Besides, the company will co-innovate the solutions to augment its employee experience.

The mobile-first platform of Darwinbox will be integral with Microsoft’s platforms such as Dynamics 365 and LinkedIn and Microsoft 365 platforms including Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Teams, and Azure Active Directory. Darwinbox has enhanced investor’s Power BI to further propel its AI-based predictive analysis engine to generate visual analytics dashboards, assist employees across consumer organizations utilize data effectively, and catalyze business decisions.

“We have a customer base of close to 750 and almost 80–85% of these customers are already using Microsoft ecosystem. This integration will further elevate that. This will also further add muscle to our global expansion plans,” said Jayant Paleti, cofounder Darwinbox. The company has a huge customer base in India with significant presence in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia across South East Asia.

Darwinbox ventured into the US market the last quarter and prior marked its presence in the Middle East. The collaboration with Microsoft also includes a go-to-market strategy which Paleti assumed to be assisting in the new regions that the company has stepped in.

Sangeeta Bavi, director – Startup Ecosystem Microsoft, stated “for Microsoft this will be the first such partnership in the HRMS space in Asia, wherein we are custom integration of Darwinbox offerings on top of Microsoft products. This will be unique for Darwinbox. And it is very interesting to see such a product platform coming from India.”

This is also among the centered partnerships that Microsoft builds with Indian product-based startups for strengthening business ties.

Paleti believes that hitting USD 100M Annual Run Rate (ARR) will be feasible in the next two years with the partnership. Darwinbox offers cover to more than two million employees from over 700 enterprises across 90 countries. Key brands included are Starbucks, Nivea, AXA, Dominos, T-Systems, Cigna, Tokio, Adani, JSW, NSE, Mahindra, Vedanta, Kotak, Ujjivan, Makemytrip, Tokopedia, and Swiggy.

“Across the country, organizations big and small are making possible new ways of doing business and we are pleased to work closely with leaders like Darwinbox, who are completely reimagining the frontiers of employee experience with the power of technology. Our collaboration with Darwinbox builds on our focus of co-innovating with our customers to empower organizations across India to do more with less,” said Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India.