Technical recruiting platform HackerRank raises $7.5M from Japan's Recruit Holding

Bangalore and California-based Interview Street Inc, which offers a technical recruiting platform for enterprises under the brand name HackerRank, has raised $7.5 million from Japanese firm Recruit Holding's HR Technology Fund, as per a press statement.

Peeyush Ranjan, VP (engineering-Motorola Mobility) at Google; Greg Badros, former senior director (engineering) at Google and former VP (engineering & products) at Facebook; and Dan Rubinstein, director (product management) at Facebook also participated in the latest round.

"This strategic investment from Recruit is a great vote of confidence in HackerRank's vision of making the world flat—where tech hiring is based on meritocracy and companies can hire the best tech talent from any corner of the world," said Vivek Ravisankar, CEO and co-founder of HackerRank.

The funding round comes just a month after HackerRank raised $9.2 million from existing investor Khosla Ventures and US-based VC firm Battery Ventures.

HackerRank offers a SaaS-based recruiting platform for screening technical candidates by testing them with programming challenges. The platform has two sets of users – its social platform is used by hackers in over 40 countries to hone their skills, while the enterprise version enables companies to screen candidates and conduct phone interviews with analytics and insights thrown in. In addition, the platform gives an opportunity to host competitive programming contests.

"As the demand for technology talent continues to outstrip supply, HackerRank offers an efficient way for HR professionals to evaluate talent beyond traditional means. They have built their reputation on being the go to community for tech talent analysis," said Chihiro Ueda, president of Recruit HR Technology Fund.

Established in 1960, Recruit Holding is Japan's diversified consumer and business services provider. The company employs over 28,000 people and operates in Asia and North America. In 2013, Recruit acquired Mumbai-based NuGrid Consulting Pvt Ltd, one of the top local executive search firms, for an undisclosed amount.

HackerRank mainly competes with UK-based Codility and US-based HireVue. Codility offers automated assessment tests and professional assessment services to help recruiters save hours of time in recruiting software developers, while HireVue is an on-demand video interview platform.