Semgrep shows developers\u2019 security errors in the code. Image Credits:<\/strong> Semgrep<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Evans said when the company launched in 2017, he had this vision of doing something like this and set out to build it, but they were having trouble building something specifically for developers. It wasn\u2019t until he hired Yoann Padioleau, a former Facebook engineer the following year, who pointed out that there was an open source product out there that did what they were trying to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018hey the product that you\u2019re building reminds me of this thing that I built at Facebook.\u2019 So you know, we didn\u2019t even actually realize when we hired him that he had built this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evans said he wasn\u2019t actually ready to hear it, but when Padioleau presented it to the company soon thereafter they knew he was onto something. \u201cAnd so at the next hackathon, like a week later, he polished it up and showed us how it could work, added support for a modern language like Python, because it only supported PHP from the Facebook era, and we were at least smart enough to admit that we were wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That moment was key for the company and they would go onto release the open source version at the end of 2020, and today the open source tooling has around 2 million users. The company\u2019s revenue-producing products grew 7.5x last year, so it appears that the products have resonated with the developers they were trying to reach, and the security teams who want to keep the code base safe.<\/p>\n

Today, the company has 90 people with plans to add around 50 more this year. He says he thinks about building a diverse team and it requires taking a slower, more deliberate approach to hiring, but it\u2019s one he\u2019s been willing to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that I\u2019ve learned is that there\u2019s this trade-off where if you want to go fast, you can use in-referral, in-network hires, and that will make you go faster, but it tends to result in less diversity across the team,\u201d he said. His preference is to take the extra time and look outside of the easy channels to look for candidates who aren\u2019t as well connected.<\/p>\n

Evans says that he wasn\u2019t planning on fundraising quite yet and he got an offer he couldn\u2019t refuse. \u201cWe had not been planning to fundraise until the summer. We had plenty of runway, but we got preempted and we had a very attractive offer on the table. And we knew that having the cash in the bank would also allow us to be more aggressive in terms of [balancing product development with more go-to-market activities],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s round was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from previous investors Felicis Ventures, Redpoint Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The company has now raised a total of $93 million.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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