Have you found it difficult to apply for leave using your company’s mobile app, filling up several columns? Or, have you found it cumbersome leaving feedback on a presentation by a colleague? Try talking to the app, thus completing the tasks much faster.

The technology behind the Darwin voice chat recognises the context of an employee’s request and takes the input accordingly. “For one, if an employee says he is applying for leave as he is not well, the solution recognises it as sick leave,” Chaitanya Peddi, co-founder of Darwinbox, told BusinessLine .

“The chatbot allows employees to give audio feedback on lectures, performances or presentations. And it is automatically fed into the HR system with minimal effort,” he said. The two-and-a-half-year-old start-up has about 80 enterprise customers, with over 500 employees each, covering a total of 2.5 lakh employees.

"We cover all the HR needs, including recruitment, employee onboarding, payroll, performance and exit management,” he said. Serial investor Mohandas Pai, Sateesh Andra’s Endiya Partners, US-based investor Lightspeed Ventures have invested $5 million in the company in two rounds. The firm, which has 120 employees, will add 80 more employees by the end of March 2019.

For smaller firms

Though it is focussing on enterprises with over 500 employees, Darwinbox is planning to introduce a lighter version, Darwin Lite, in the next six months to address companies with less than 500 employees. “The pre-configured version would take care of the needs of the smaller firms,” he said.

The company, which offers the solution on pay-per-employee basis, is planning to sell the solution abroad as well. “We are already present in Singapore. We are looking at expanding to Indonesia and Malaysia in the next few months,” Chaitanya said.

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