The Japanese company, Recruit, reviewed several companies that disrupted the technical hiring space to finally zero in on HackerRank, which has one million coders on its platform.
HackerRank, erstwhile InterviewStreet, has managed a strategic funding of Rs 47 crore from the Japanese human resources company, Recruit Holding’s, HR Technology Fund.
The Bengaluru-based startup founded by the two engineers, Vivek Ravisankar and Harishankaran K, helps companies, such as Facebook, Yahoo and Amazon to recruit technical talent. It also provides a technology platform for programmers to hone their coding skills.
The fresh investment will be used to scale up operations and further enhance its product.
The idea of InterviewStreet originated in the dormitory of the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Tiruchirapalli.
The two founders set up a forum for mock interviews with college students, to help select the best candidates. Though the duo got picked up by tech companies IBM and Amazon, they continued to work on the idea.
In 2012, InterviewStreet was hired by the Obama Administration for technology support, to roll out a programme for promotion of equal pay for women in corporate America. It developed a technology platform on which the US Government built tools to promote this goal.
This is the second round of funding for the recruitment solutions company as in the past it had raised a $9.2M funding from Khosla Ventures and Battery Ventures, the investors who had helped seed Dropbox Inc. and Airbnb Inc.
It is learnt that Recruit reviewed several companies that disrupted the technical hiring space. Finally it selected HackerRank ,which has one million coders on its platform.
“As the demand for technology talent continues to outstrip supply, HackerRank offers an efficient way for human resources professionals to evaluate talent beyond traditional means,” said Chihiro Ueda, president, Recruit HR Technology Fund, in an official statement.
“They have built their reputation as being the ‘go to community’ for tech talent analysis,” he added.
Experts say there is a huge unmet need to hire technical talent. About 73 per cent of companies with fewer than 1,000 employees and 88 per cent of organisations with over 1,000 employees agreed that they cannot find the tech hires required to power innovation, according to a survey conducted by media firm, UBM.
“There is urgency within tech companies to find the right talent,” said Harishankaran K., chief technology officer at HackerRank.
