Microsoft ventures in DarwinBox; to collaborate, integrate product ecosystem By CIOTechOutlook Team

Microsoft ventures in DarwinBox; to collaborate, integrate product ecosystem

CIOTechOutlook Team | Tuesday, 17 January 2023, 03:47 IST

Microsoft has made investments in DarwinBox, the unicorn HR IT company funded by Sequoia. The investment's financial specifics were kept a secret.

DarwinBox will be the first HR tech SaaS-based platform from Asia with which Microsoft will also collaborate, and this partnership will result in integration between DarwinBox and Microsoft's product ecosystem as well as co-innovation on solutions to improve employee experience.

Deep connections between Darwinbox's mobile-first platform and Microsoft's services including LinkedIn, Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva, and Azure Active Directory will be possible. Darwinbox has used Microsoft's Power BI to enhance its AI-based predictive analytics engine and create visual analytics dashboards that would enable faster business choices from employees across customer organisations.

Jayant Paletti, cofounder DarwinBox said: “We have a customer base of close to 750 and almost 80-85 per cent 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.” DarwinBox has a large customer base in India, and in South East Asia has presence in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines, and Indonesia.

DarwinBox entered the US market last quarter and the Middle East region before that. The collaboration also includes a go-to-market plan, which, according to Paleti, will be helpful in the new markets the business has lately entered.

“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,” said Sangeeta Bavi, director- Startup Ecosystem Microsoft.

Microsoft is forming more in-depth collaborations with product-driven entrepreneurs in India, and this is one of the targeted partnerships they are doing so.

Paletti is certain that with this partnership, reaching the $100 million annual run rate (ARR) should be feasible within the next two years. Over 2 million employees from more than 700 businesses in 90 countries are covered by Darwinbox's offerings. Nivea, Starbucks, Domino's, T-Systems, AXA, Tokio, Cigna, JSW, Adani, Vedanta, Mahindra, Kotak, NSE, Ujjivan, Makemytrip, Swiggy, and Tokopedia are a few of these companies.

Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, said, “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.”