Talent Evaluation Platform HackerRank Raises $30 Mn In Series C Funding

The US-based coding talent evaluation platform HackerRank has raised $30 Mn in Series C funding led by JMI Equity, a growth equity firm focused on investing in leading software companies.

Existing investors, including Khosla Ventures, Battery Ventures, Randstad Innovation Fund and Chartline Capital Partners, also participated in the round.

Suken Vakil, General Partner at JMI Equity, has joined HackerRank’s Board of Directors. The funding will be used to accelerate its growth in the enterprise, expand and support its growing community of more than 3.4 Mn developers, and advance its data science research and development, according to the company statement.

The total funding of HackerRank now stands at $58.2 Mn. In 2014, the Y Combinator alum had raised $9.2 Mn Series B funding round led by Khosla Ventures and Battery Ventures. In 2015, the coding talent evaluation platform had secured $7.5 Mn in funding as part of the strategic investment from Recruit Holding’s HR Technology Fund.

Vivek Ravisankar, Co-founder, and CEO of HackerRank believes that the need for developers is only going to increase as every company becomes a software company. To hire the talent they need to drive innovation, companies can’t afford to continue to use antiquated resumes in the first step of their hiring process.

“HackerRank is playing an important role in reshaping the future of technical hiring – one where developers can showcase their skills and employers can evaluate them in an unbiased way,” he added.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be a 24% increase in the number of software development jobs available by 2026. The latest funding will help HackerRank further advance its data science capabilities to get deeper insights into developer skills and match them to the right job opportunities.

This analytics will give HackerRank an opportunity to more accurately and predictively identify and match candidates with job openings. The company has seen tremendous traction as companies across all industries recognize the need to hire technical talent. Marquee customers include BlackRock, Atlassian, VMware, Capital One, and Looker.

Speaking about the investment, Suken Vakil stated, “We see a massive opportunity in HackerRank. Over 10% of the world’s population of software developers and over a thousand companies use HackerRank. We look forward to helping the HackerRank team scale their efforts in transforming the way companies evaluate and hire the right developers.”

According to an IDC research, there are around 11 Mn professional software developers and 7.5 Mn hobbyists programmers in the world. Honing technical talent capabilities of developers/coders, startups like US-based HackerRank and Fond, India’s elitmus, and HackerEarth are catching up to meet the demand in this segment.