At a time when US President Donald Trump has tightened his stance on immigration and H-1B visas, an Indian-origin entrepreneur has emerged as a new billionaire in Silicon Valley. Jyoti Bansal, who moved to the United States from India with just a few hundred dollars and years on a work visa, has hit the billionaire mark after his AI startup Harness raised $240 million at a $5.5 billion valuation.
When Jyoti Bansal sold his first company to Cisco in 2017, he thought he was done. At just 39, he had made more money than he ever imagined.
Harness founder Jyoti Bansal becomes Billionaire
According to Forbes, the funding was led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Institutional Venture Partners and Menlo Ventures. According to Forbes estimates, Bansal’s net worth now stands at around $2.3 billion. He owns an estimated 30% stake in Harness and also holds cash from the sale of his earlier company, AppDynamics.
Early life and move to the US
Bansal grew up in a small town in Rajasthan, India. Growing up he helped his father run a farming machinery business. He later studied computer engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.
After graduating, he moved to the United States at the age of 21 with limited funds. He spent seven years working as an engineer at three enterprise technology firms, which sponsored his H-1B visa. Bansal became a US citizen in 2016. He has previously criticised visa rules that prevent skilled workers from starting companies while on temporary work visas, calling such restrictions short-sighted, according to Forbes.
Jyoti Bansal: Journey to the top
Bansal founded AppDynamics in 2008. The company provided software tools to help large platforms detect and fix technical issue. The company soon crossed $200 million in annual revenue. In January 2017, Cisco acquired the company for $3.7 billion, just days before the company was scheduled to go public.
After the sale, he briefly stepped away from work and spent several months travelling. He took trips to Africa, explored, South America, Europe and the majestic Himalayas.
However, months after self reflection, Bansal decided to return to entrepreneurship, saying that retirement did not suit him. He went on to launch Harness. The company focuses on software delivery and testing, areas he had worked on closely during his time at AppDynamics.
What Harness does?
Harness is an AI-based software delivery platform that helps companies test, secure and deploy code. The company uses artificial intelligence agents to automate tasks that are usually done manually by engineers, such as testing for errors, ensuring compliance with regulations, and securing software before release.
Bansal has said that writing code makes up only a small part of software development, while most of the effort goes into testing and deployment. Harness aims to reduce this workload. Its clients include major companies such as United Airlines and Citi. The company’s services have become more important as the use of generative AI has increased the volume of code being written.
The company also operates 16 related products. One of them is Traceable, a cybersecurity firm founded by Bansal that was later merged into Harness. Harness is headquartered in San Francisco and has raised a total of $570 million so far. The company employs more than 1,200 people and follows a hybrid work model. It is currently growing at around 50% year on year.