Before I co-founded Darwinbox, I spent years in technology and management roles, always chasing the spark of innovation, the energy that transforms entire industries, ignites growth, and creates real impact. Yet when I looked at Human Capital Management (HCM), something didn’t add up. While every other function was evolving rapidly, HR systems felt static, old-fashioned, unable to keep pace with changing expectations.
The Problem with Old HR Systems
Bloated, Costly, and Underutilized
Many outdated HR platforms come full of flashy modules, but HR teams often end up paying for capabilities they rarely touch. Meanwhile, renewal and maintenance costs snowball, steadily eating into your budget. This dynamic leaves finance leaders dreading every renewal cycle.
Innovation That’s Glacial, Not Agile
Legacy HR systems tend to roll out updates at a glacial pace. By the time a version upgrade hits, your workforce has already evolved past its limitations. Modern HR teams need rapid, incremental improvements, not monolithic features that feel obsolete the moment they launch.
Complicated Tools = Poor Adoption
If core tasks like submitting a PTO request feel like a labyrinth, employees simply avoid them. It’s not uncommon to find frustrated HR professionals describing their old platforms with comments like needing “a map, a flashlight, and a lot of patience” for basic functions. That kind of friction decimates ROI because even the priciest solution is useless if nobody uses it.
We realized the gap.
A Vision Born in 2015
In 2015, we set out to bridge it by launching Darwinbox.
From Day-1, our mission was clear: to build the most agile, human-first, and intelligent HCM platform for enterprises. One that put HR teams (and their people) back in the driver’s seat of the employee experience, rather than making them mere passengers in a clunky, outdated system.
We set out to create an AI-driven, automation-first HCM platform: one that could seamlessly support enterprises in attracting, assessing, onboarding, and developing talent at scale.
Fast forward to today, our mission is more alive than ever. Today, being recognized as a Customers’ Choice in the Gartner® Peer Insights™ “Voice of Customer” 2025 for Cloud HCM Suites for 1000+ Employee Enterprises is a validation of that mission.
It reflects our commitment to AI-first HR system, rapid execution, and building solutions that challenge the legacy status quo. It’s our fourth consecutive year earning this distinction! It’s proof that our commitment to innovation, execution, and customer centricity matters deeply.
A Journey of Growth: 2015 to Now
From 3 modules in 2016 to 15 in 2025, we’ve advanced the mission to make Darwinbox an AI-native, mobile-first platform covering the full employee lifecycle, from planning and hiring to performance, mobility, and analytics.
As of 2025, Darwinbox’s cloud-native platform supports over 1,000 enterprises in 130+ countries, serving nearly 4 million employees worldwide. It combines consumer-grade user experience with enterprise-grade configurability and an "AI-first" architecture that is purpose-built to replace legacy, disconnected HR systems.
At the heart of our platform lies a simple value proposition: to elevate employee experience while enabling enterprises to evolve with speed, insight, and scale. We deliver on this through:
Consumer-grade experiences that are mobile-first, role-based, and deeply configurable.
AI-first architecture including Darwinbox Sense (our comprehensive AI suite), our LLM Gateway, and our proprietary Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server, making us the world’s first HCM platform to support real-time, secure orchestration between customer-deployed AI agents and platform workflows.
Intelligent innovations like Career Architecture creation, Native Skills Ontology, Semantic Talent Search, Agentic AI and Embedded AI that power automation and insight across modules.
Integrated ecosystems via our Integration Studio, which connects to 300+ enterprise apps and processes 100M+ API calls monthly.
Talent Management, our latest release, introduces a skill-based suite, Talent Hub, Career Explorer, Career Reflection, and Development Plans, designed to drive succession, mobility, and career visibility for every employee.
In under a decade, Darwinbox has expanded across Asia Pacific, including Singapore, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, alongside the Middle East, UK, and US, with Southeast Asia now its largest region interms of new revenue generated, followed by India. Over the past two years, international revenue has jumped five‑fold, growing 87% in FY24, and today more than 60% of new ARR comes from international markets.
In March 2025, we raised $140M in strategic funding from KKR and Partners Group, further strengthening its position to lead on 2 critical fronts: deep technology innovation and global market expansion. Most recently, we secured $40 million in a funding round from Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.
What Our Customers Tell Us
Our clientele spans Manufacturing, BFSI, Pharma, Retail, Technology, hyper-growth startups, and Government-linked industries among others, with workforce sizes ranging from 2,000 to 100,000+ employees, supporting key markets such as
India: complex manufacturing and field operations,
Southeast Asia: digital-native unicorns,
Middle East & North Africa: conglomerates and public sector,
North America and Europe: enterprises modernizing legacy HCM.
The Gartner Peer Insights Customers’ Choice recognition is based on feedback directly from people using the platform in the real world: HR leaders, employees, decision-makers. And the numbers speak loudly:
As of early 2025, Darwinbox earns an overall rating of 4.7 out of 5, with 144 verified reviews.
We join a select group alongside giants like Oracle, PeopleStrong, and Workday who share the 2025 Customers’ Choice designation.
Customers rate us highly across every key category: from product capabilities to support and deployment.
Most importantly, our willingness-to-recommend score remains consistently strong, reflecting real positive impact inside organizations.
It's humbling. Every review, every star, every comment is a sign that our focus on intelligence, ease, and employee-first design is actually making a difference.
Why This Recognition Matters
Every time Gartner’s Customers’ Choice includes Darwinbox, it's not just a badge; it’s a dialogue with our customers. It tells us:
We’re delivering value, not complexity. Organizations are not just buying modules—they’re getting impact.
Agility beats antiquity. Real-time updates, AI-enabled automation, mobile-first design—this is what users choose, again and again.
Adoption is everything. When users say, "I actually enjoy using this system," adoption soars. And that’s precisely what drives results.
It’s not about being big but being beloved. As one of the few Asian-origin tech platforms consistently recognized globally, it reaffirms our global-first mindset.
In Retrospect: What I’ve Learned
Co-building Darwinbox has taught me three invaluable lessons:
Innovation is human first. The smartest tech becomes obsolete without empathy and design.
You learn fastest from your customers. Their feedback is not just data; it is your North Star.
Edgy ideas need exquisite execution. Vision alone won’t change HR; it’s execution that moves hearts, wins reviews, and builds real advocacy.
To our customers: thank you!
Your trust, feedback, and frankness have shaped Darwinbox’s journey.
To our team: you build relentless innovation and human-first design every day. And to the future: HR systems can be powerful, simple, and transformative all at once. We’re just getting started, and with Gartner’s 2025 Customers’ Choice recognition behind us, I’ve never been more excited about what we’ll build next.
