Emerging Indian Saas Leaders: Darwinbox's Jayant Paleti, Chaitanya Peddi and Rohit Chennamaneni

(From left): Jayant Paleti, Chaitanya Peddi, and Rohit Chennamaneni, co-founders, Darwinbox

These powerhouses of innovation have made the best use of tech and software, and attained unicorn status.

Darwinbox, a human capital management platform provider, was founded by Chaitanya Peddi, Rohit Chennamaneni and Jayant Paleti in 2015. The venture turned unicorn in January with a $72 million Series-D investment led by Technology Crossover Ventures that valued it at $1 billion.

More than 650 enterprises use its platform to manage payroll, leave and attendance, appraisals, and learning and development of over 1.5 million employees, early investors Endiya Partners noted in a recent newsletter. “In an especially proud moment last year, Darwinbox became the youngest and only Asian company to be admitted into the prestigious Gartner Magic Quadrant,” the newsletter said.

“Could Darwinbox Become The Next Workday?” asks Josh Bersin, a well-known HR consultant and entrepreneur. He’s referring to US-based Workday, a Nasdaq-listed provider of cloud software for HR, finance and student information systems.

Darwinbox has almost every HCM, talent management, and employee experience function an enterprise might need, Bersin said in February. It includes configurable recruiting, onboarding, performance management, succession, leave management, helpdesk, case management, and time and attendance. Its strength is in that each of these are not monolithic systems, but more like mini-apps that tap a configurable and workflow-enabled core, he wrote.