Software developer community HackerRank raises $30 M in Series C

In today’s tech-driven world, nearly every major company relies on some software or another to keep itself afloat. With dependency on software comes a need for trained developers and coders who can keep the software heart beating, and this need is only going to rise in the future. Banking on this, US-based HackerRank, a skills-based recruitment and challenge community for coders, announced that it had raised $30 million Series C funding in a round led by JMI Equity, a venture fund that specialises in the scaling of software companies. HackerRank’s existing investors Khosla Ventures, Battery Ventures, Randstad, and Chartline Capital Partners also participated in the round.

Founded in July 2012, HackerRank previously raised $200,000 in seed funding in May 2011, $3.5 million in Series A in September 2011, and $24.5 million in Series B in August 2016. The latest round brings the company’s total funding to $58.2 million. HackerRank has over 1,000 customers across all industries, including five out of the top eight commercial banks and four of the top seven retail companies in the US. Company Co-founder and CEO Vivek Ravisankar said that the platform has a 3.4-million-strong developer community that has developed organically.

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of software development jobs will rise by 24 percent by 2026. HackerRank aims to use the money from the latest round of funding to build data analytics and machine learning capabilities that will help it better match developers to job requirements based on their skill sets. “It’s very hard for a lot of companies to quantify what makes a great developer,” Vivek says, explaining that his company aims to better use data to improve the company-applicant fit for developer roles.

As part of the deal, Suken Vakil, General Partner, JMI Equity, has joined HackerRank’s Board of Directors. In a statement, he said, “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.”

HackerRank’s broad customer base helped it become cash flow-positive for a brief period in 2017, and the company aims to return to those ways again. The company has expanded its platform to move beyond core programming skills and add support for other technical roles, including positions in DevOps, database specialists, and more. It currently employs around 150 people, but there are plans to expand the team further in the near future.