Microsoft has made an equity investment in Hyderabad-based HR tech unicorn Darwinbox. The financial details of the investment were not disclosed.
With this, the Redmond giant has picked up a strategic stake in the cloud-based SaaS platform as part of its aim to enhance employee experience, continue retaining talented workers, and drive innovations in the workforce, payroll, and talent management. This development also makes Darwinbox the first HR tech SaaS-based platform from Asia which will collaborate and witness integration with Microsoft’s arsenal of products.
The deal is not limited to the equity investment, and will further bring Microsoft and Darwinbox’s ecosystems together while adopting and innovating solutions to enhance the employee experience. For one, Microsoft will integrate Darwinbox’s Human Capital Management (HCM) solution with Teams, its collaboration platform, in order to make it easier for employees to collaborate.
On the other hand, Darwinbox will adopt Microsoft Azure for enhancing its mobile-first platform HCM SaaS platform, as well as leverage Teams, Viva, and Active Directory in order to improve its platform and personalize employee experience. The mobile-first HCM platform caters to HR needs across the entire employee lifecycle. By bringing HR transactions and experiences into the flow of work with Dynamics 365 and Office 365 platforms like Microsoft Teams, Viva, and Active Directory, Darwinbox will further personalize employee experience.
“It is a big milestone for us. As it brings in investments, Microsoft will help us in expanding to newer geographies and customers,” Paleti said, adding that “the relationship will also accelerate joint go-to-market motions in all markets that the leading Human Capital Management player operates in.”
“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.
Paletti informed that 80-85% of its customer base already uses Microsoft’s ecosystem, and the integration will “elevate that” and fuel its plans for further international expansion. It already has a presence in multiple South-East Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam, and entered into the US and Middle East markets last year. The platform includes the likes of Starbucks, Dominos, and Mahindra among its clients, and became one of the first startups to achieve unicorn status before the funding winter made startups shiver. It also onboarded key executive leadership from EY, Deloitte, and Microsoft last year.
