HackerEarth Secures $4.5 Mn Funding From DHI Group Inc., Aims To Expand International Footprint

Professional talent management startup HackerEarth has raised $4.5 Mn (INR 30 Cr) in an equity financing round led by US-based DHI Group Inc.

The round also saw participation from Japanese firms BEENEXT, BEENOS, Digital Garage, and BizReach, and existing investor Prime Venture Partners.

The startup will use the raised funds to strengthen the product team and for international expansion.

Talking about the funding, Michael Durney, President and CEO of DHI Group, Inc. said, “We were thrilled to invest in a product which helps tech professionals manage their careers and hiring organisations efficiently verify tech candidates to make the recruiting process more seamless. The employment market for tech professionals remains tight and DHI, together with HackerEarth, are delivering an effective service for professionals and employers to gain an advantage over competitors.”

The Bengaluru-based startup was founded by Sachin Gupta and Vivek Prakash in 2012. HackerEarth helps tech companies hire developers using their platform. Through a pre-ranked network of developers, assessed on the basis of their skills, HackerEarth aims to ease technical recruitment for its clients, who can save man hours by automating the entire assessment process.

The platform’s two main products for businesses are Sprint and Recruit. Sprint is an innovation management tool that allows organisations to enhance employee development by involving their employees, partners, customers, and the open developer community.

The second product, HackerEarth Recruit enables enterprises to conduct tests to screen technical candidates. Recruit allows recruiters to seamlessly create programming tests and remotely evaluate candidates. As per an official statement, Recruit’s solution has been deployed by more than 500 companies for technical assessment, including Amazon, DBS, UBS and L&T Infotech.

Sachin Gupta, CEO and co-founder, HackerEarth said, “We have seen rapid growth in the last four years and this fresh capital infusion will help us to further accelerate, particularly in the international markets. With HackerEarth Sprint, we have rapidly grown in the space of innovation management, primarily helping companies drive innovation through hackathons.  This is in-line with our ongoing efforts to build a large developer community across the globe and help companies do better talent management.”

The startup has raised a total of $5 Mn in equity investment inclusive of this round, till date. The company claims to have grown 5X in the last one year and has onboarded over 300 customers. HackerEarth claims to have assessed more than 1 Mn candidates till now on the Recruit platform.

Earlier in January this year, HackerEarth entered into a strategic partnership with Dice, a US-based career site for technology professionals, to sell its main products.

In July 2016, online classifieds platform Quikr, acquired online recruitment firm Hiree, a startup focussed on white collar jobs. In August 2016, Randstad Holding NV, an HR services provider acquired job portal Monster Worldwide for approximately $429 Mn. In February 2017, Bengaluru-based recruitment startup Belong raised $10 Mn in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from existing investor Matrix Partners India.

Other startups in this segment include Talview, Babajob, and Aasaanjobs, among others.