Karat Inc., a startup that helps companies interview software engineers faster and free up time for their existing development teams in the process, has closed a $110 million funding round led by Tiger Global.

The round, announced this morning, also saw the participation of Norwest Venture Partners, 8VC, Exor, Base Partner and Sempervirens Fund. Seattle-based Karat has raised about $170 million to date.

When hiring for a software engineering role, enterprises often seek candidates who are familiar with a specific set of programming languages and tools. For example, a company looking to add an Android developer to the team might seek applicants with knowledge of Java, the programming language in which Android apps are most commonly written. The company may also have other requirements, such as that applicants possess experience with a specific mobile database.

Because of the interviewing workflow’s highly technical nature, candidate assessments are often carried out by a company’s developers. According to Karat, an estimated $60 billion of engineering time is invested every year in interviewing. The startup has developed a cloud-based platform that promises to free up the time a company’s developers normally spend on interviewing candidates and streamline the interviewing process.

Karat’s platform provides access to a network of developers who can interview candidates on a company’s behalf. The startup also assists organizations with several related tasks involved in this process.

When a company sets out to expand its development team, Karat helps determine what new software engineering skills are needed. The startup then works with customers to create a set of technical questions customized for the role they are looking to fill. Candidates who apply for the role must complete the questions as part of a 60-minute assessment supervised by an expert from Karat’s developer network. 

Strong demand from enterprises seeking technical talent has tripled Karat’s bookings over the past year, the startup disclosed today without sharing absolute numbers. The total number of customers using its platform has doubled over the same time frame. Karat’s client base now includes major enterprises such as American Express Inc., Ford Motor Co. and Atlassian Corp. PLC.

Another notable growth metric disclosed by the startup today is that its average enterprise client is doubling its spending year-over-year. Eight of Karat’s customers are now spending more than $1 million a year to use its platform as part of their developer interviewing process. 

“Just like the public cloud moved everyone from private computing to shared infrastructure, Karat’s Interviewing Cloud is upending the old way of do-it-yourself interviewing that eats into valuable engineering time and fails to delight candidates,” said Karat co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mohit Bhende.

Following its latest $110 million funding round, Karat will invest in enhancing its data science capabilities to help companies optimize how they interview developers. The startup also intends to grow its go-to-market teams.

Enterprises are adopting a variety of new tools and methods to help them meet the growing demand for software engineering skills. As part of the trend, companies are rolling out not only new interview solutions but also low-code and no-code development tools that automate some of the tasks involved in building software. 

Low-code and no-code tools enable business users to take over some development tasks that previously required programming expertise, which speeds up software projects. The technology is useful for engineers as well. Software teams use low-code tools to automate repetitive chores and free up time for higher-value programming tasks. 

Image: Karat