CodeSignal Secures $50M Funding for Tech Hiring Platform

CodeSignal Secures $50 Million Series C Funding to Enhance Data-Driven Hiring

Within a year of securing $25 million in Series B funding, CodeSignal, a technical assessment firm, has announced a $50 million Series C investment. This new capital will be utilized to introduce expanded functionalities to its platform, designed to facilitate data-informed hiring practices for identifying and evaluating engineering professionals.

Investment Details and Participants

Mirroring the leadership of its previous Series B round – Menlo Ventures – CodeSignal has again partnered with Index Ventures to spearhead this Series C funding. Menlo Ventures rejoined the investment, alongside contributions from Headline and A Capital. This latest round elevates CodeSignal’s total funding to $87.5 million.

The Genesis of CodeSignal

The concept for CodeSignal originated from a personal experience shared by co-founder Aram Shatakhtsyan while navigating the engineering job market. Both Shatakhtsyan and co-founder Tigran Sloyan, originally from Armenia, pursued divergent academic paths. Shatakhtsyan remained in Armenia, while Sloyan attended MIT and subsequently worked at Google.

“While my peers and I were actively being recruited, Aram struggled to gain attention with his resume, despite possessing exceptional programming skills – arguably the best I’ve encountered,” Sloyan explained to TechCrunch. “Companies consistently cite talent acquisition as a primary challenge, yet a highly capable engineer was overlooked.”

A Platform for Skill-Based Evaluation

In 2015, Sloyan, Shatakhtsyan, and Sophia Baik established CodeSignal as a self-operating interview platform. This platform directly assesses skills, irrespective of an applicant’s background. Sloyan likens the company’s assessment technology to a “flight simulator for developers,” providing candidates with a practical evaluation of their abilities and generating a performance score alongside identified strengths.

Growth and Customer Base

The increasing demand from companies to recruit engineers has fueled CodeSignal’s revenue growth, achieving a 3.5x increase year-over-year. The company now serves a diverse clientele including Brex, Databricks, Facebook, Instacart, Robinhood, Upwork, and Zoom.

Strategic Partnership with Index Ventures

Despite not yet utilizing the funds from its Series B round, Sloyan was eager to collaborate with Nina Achadjian, a partner at Index Ventures, with whom he had a long-standing relationship from their time at Google. The opportunity to work together and have Achadjian join the company’s board was described as “unmissable.”

Expanding the Scope of Engineering Talent Search

Achadjian had previously supported Sloyan by connecting him with mentors and angel investors while closely monitoring the company’s progress after transitioning to venture capital. She observed that hiring engineers is “mission critical” for technology companies, but increasingly vital for organizations across all sectors.

Her due diligence revealed CodeSignal’s adoption not only by traditional tech companies but also by industries like banking and insurance.

“Their growth trajectory was remarkable, and numerous companies within our portfolio were already leveraging CodeSignal,” she noted. “It’s uncommon to witness such accelerated growth at this stage of a company’s development.”

Addressing the Global Talent Shortage

According to U.S. Department of Labor statistics, a global talent shortage of 40 million workers currently exists, projected to exceed 85 million by 2030. Achadjian anticipates a concurrent increase in engineering job opportunities, emphasizing the growing importance of effective candidate vetting and the ability for applicants to apply from any location.

New Features and Future Expansion

The recent funding has enabled CodeSignal to launch an Integrated Development Environment (IDE). This allows candidates to engage with assessment experiences featuring code, files, and a terminal within a familiar environment, showcasing their skills and previewing their application. Simultaneously, employers can assign the same coding task to each candidate based on the specific job requirements.

Furthermore, Sloyan plans to triple the company’s workforce in the coming months and broaden its scope to encompass additional applications for skills assessment.