SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Following its recent $110M Series C funding round and the news of a strategic investment from Serena Williams, Karat has announced that Teresa Carlson is joining the company’s Board of Directors. Carlson’s previous leadership roles at Splunk, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft will complement the broader strength of the existing board of industry veterans, including Karat co-founders Mohit Bhende and Jeffrey Spector, former Twitch COO Sara Clemens, and Parker Barrile, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners, who was previously Vice President of Product at LinkedIn.
“Engineering time is more valuable than ever, yet companies are spending $60 billion a year in engineering time on interviews to address the multi-decade shortage of engineers,” said Mohit Bhende, Karat co-founder and CEO. “Teresa’s deep expertise in building markets from scratch for some of the world’s leading companies will be integral to helping Karat scale our global infrastructure and go-to-market function even faster. When we accelerate hiring for more customers, we help them unlock valuable engineering time that drives diverse and powerful innovations.”
Carlson most recently served as President and Chief Growth Officer of Splunk and Vice President for AWS’ worldwide public sector and industries businesses. She also held the role of Vice President for Federal Sales and Operations at Microsoft. Carlson currently serves as the non-executive chair of KnightSwan Acquisition Corporation, holds B.A. and M.S. degrees from Western Kentucky University, and has been a long-time advocate for bringing diverse skill sets into the tech industry.
“Now more than ever, companies are expected to have a strong mission and value set that guide their product offering,” said Carlson. “Karat’s Interviewing Cloud sits squarely at the intersection of business and purpose – enabling corporations to hire at the scale and speed required to compete for top talent while simultaneously helping deepen and diversify the overall talent pool. It’s this emphasis on purpose that gives me tremendous confidence in the major impact Karat will have on the technology industry for years to come.”
The announcement comes at a time of significant growth for Karat. The company announced a $1.1B valuation in October 2021 following a Tiger Global-led Series C funding round of $110M from inside investors, including Norwest Venture Partners, 8VC, Exor, Base Partners, and Sempervirens Fund. The company has since brought on clients like Visa, Ford, BNY Mellon, Snap, Bloomberg, and Atlassian.
In April 2022, Karat announced that it has received a strategic investment from tennis champion Serena Williams to significantly scale the company’s Brilliant Black Minds program, which provides free technical interview practice and feedback to current and aspiring Black software engineers in the U.S. The investment has helped launch an industry-wide movement to help double the number of Black software engineers over the next decade.
About Karat
Karat created the world’s first Interviewing Cloud to solve the multi-decade global shortage of software engineers. The Interviewing Cloud is an always-on, scalable and consistent human + tech solution for conducting predictive, fair and enjoyable technical interviews 24/7. The fastest growing and largest enterprises such as Indeed, Wayfair, Roblox, American Express, Coinbase, and Intuit trust Karat to expand hiring capacity and unlock developer time so they can innovate and grow. For more information, please visit www.karat.com.
