Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan doubles down on Darwinbox with follow-on investment | Hyderabad News

Hyderabad: A little over a year after it invested $40 million in HRtech unicorn Darwinbox, Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG), the late-stage venture and growth investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), has made a follow-on investment in the Hyderabad-based startup as it deepens its AI play and expands globally. The financial terms of the investment were not disclosed.TVG said the latest funding reflects its confidence in Darwinbox’s leadership, product development and opportunity to cater to enterprises seeking modern HR technology.Darius Vakil, managing director, TVG, said the investment underscores Darwinbox’s potential to redefine workforce management and expand in North America with Cortex, its newly rolled out AI-native platform, proving to be another instance of the company’s agility and customer centricity.Darwinbox co-founder & co-CEO Jayant Paleti said that enterprise software is undergoing a generational shift towards AI-native platforms and Darwinbox is leading that shift with its AI-native HCM platform Cortex, which was launched in August this year.The platform, which is currently being piloted by customers including Visteon and Transcarent, has been built with partners such as Microsoft, Slack and Glean and embeds intelligence and execution into existing workplace applications.“With Cortex, we moved early and are leading that shift in HCM, with several industry-first innovations including the first Context Graph in the category. Our focus now is to work closely with our customers, drive real adoption and value, and scale AI usage across the enterprise,” Paleti said.Darwinbox, which was set up in 2015, caters to over 1,400 companies and 4.5 million employees across the United States, the Middle East, India and South-East Asia, clocking a 70% compound annual growth rate over the past five years. The startup has been investing in workflow automation, HR operations and personalised employee experiences.