HRtech

Canada’s OTPP Nears $50M Investment in Darwinbox; Valuation Set to Cross $1 Billion

• ByStartupStory     |    August 8, 2025

Canadian pension fund Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP) is in the advanced stages of acquiring a $50 million stake in Hyderabad-based human resource software-as-a-service (HR-SaaS) firm Darwinbox, according to sources familiar with the matter. The deal is expected to value Darwinbox at over $1 billion, potentially cementing its place among India’s growing list of unicorns.

The investment, said to be a mix of primary and secondary transactions, will see existing investor Peak XV Partners partially offload its stake. Founded in 2015 by Chaitanya Peddi, Jayant Paleti, and Rohit Chennamaneni, Darwinbox provides cloud-based HR solutions for enterprises, offering services from hiring and onboarding to attendance tracking and employee management. The platform currently serves more than 1,000 organisations across 130 countries, with clients including Starbucks, Nivea, Cigna, WeWork, and Crisil.

This development follows Darwinbox’s $140 million round in March, led by KKR and Partners Group, which also involved secondary share sales from Lightspeed and early investors. That round pegged the company’s valuation at around $950 million. The current transaction, largely driven by post-round investor interest, includes approximately 60% secondary share sales.

For Peak XV Partners, which first invested in Darwinbox in 2019, the deal could deliver a tenfold return on its original investment. OTPP’s participation comes through its Teachers’ Venture Growth platform, which has previously backed Indian startups such as Mintifi, Perfios, and Xpressbees.

The investment is not OTPP’s first foray into the HR-SaaS space in the Asia-Pacific region. In July 2024, it co-led a $140 million funding round for Japanese HR management platform SmartHR alongside KKR.

Darwinbox reported a 58% year-on-year revenue growth in FY24 to ₹392 crore and is targeting a further 50% growth in FY25. The company has been aggressively expanding into international markets including the Asia-Pacific, West Asia, the UK, and the US. “We really started selling in the US in FY25, and the traction has been strong,” cofounder Chaitanya Peddi told ET earlier this year, adding that the company aims to surpass $100 million in annual recurring revenue by December 2025.

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