Karat

Karat

Karat launched in 2014 after co-founder Jeffrey Spector, a former senior engineer, recognized the high failure rate of conventional technical interviews. Mohit Bhende, a Microsoft veteran, joined to scale the insight into a venture-backed company. The firm's sole operating unit is Karat Inc., headquartered in Seattle. It does not trade, manage outside capital, or operate as a family office. The service combines a proprietary interview infrastructure with a vetted network of Interview Engineers — practitioners trained in consistent rubric-based assessment. Karat delivers live video interviews, records sessions for later review, and generates structured feedback for clients. Early customers included Triplebyte and Palantir; by 2021 named enterprise clients included Roblox, Indeed, and Wayfair. The model covers software engineering, data science, and QA roles. Integration partnerships with applicant tracking systems like Greenhouse and Lever embed Karat directly into client hiring workflows. Karat has raised approximately $167 million across multiple funding rounds from investors including Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, and Base10 Partners. In October 2021, the firm closed a $110 million Series C led by Tiger Global, valuing the company at $1.1 billion (per the firm, October 2021). An earlier $28 million Series B closed in 2019. The team operates primarily from Seattle. A defining structural feature is Karat's separation from contingent recruiting. It charges clients per completed interview, not per hire. This shifts the economic incentive toward assessment quality, unlike contingency recruiters paid only on placement. The Interview Engineering model further detaches interview capacity from a client's own senior engineers, preserving internal focus while maintaining a consistent candidate experience.