Harness Secures $240 Million Series E at $5.5 Billion Valuation as AI DevOps Demand Soars

AI-powered DevOps platform Harness has raised a massive $240 million in new funding. The Series E round values the San Francisco-based company at $5.5 billion. This move highlights intense investor confidence in automation tools for the software development lifecycle.The round was led by Goldman Sachs. It signals a major bet on tools that manage the complex “after-code” phase of building software. Harness founder Jyoti Bansal confirmed the news to TechCrunch, stating the company is on a strong growth trajectory.

Funding Details and Strategic Employee Liquidity

The $240 million investment includes a $200 million primary investment. A separate $40 million tender offer is also part of the deal. According to Bansal, the tender offer provides liquidity for long-term employees.Existing investors IVP, Menlo Ventures, and Unusual Ventures participated. This new valuation marks a significant 49% increase from its $3.7 billion valuation in April 2022. To date, Harness has now raised $570 million in equity funding.Bansal is a known figure in the DevOps space. He previously founded and sold AppDynamics to Cisco for $3.7 billion. His experience lends credibility to Harness’s ambitious vision in a competitive market.

Addressing the AI-Generated Code Bottleneck

The core problem Harness tackles is growing. AI tools are accelerating code creation dramatically. However, the testing, security, and deployment phase still consumes up to 70% of engineering time.Harness uses AI agents to automate these critical, error-prone tasks. Its system is built on a proprietary software delivery knowledge graph. This graph maps a customer’s entire software architecture, providing context for its AIThe platform claims over 1,000 enterprise customers. Notable clients include United Airlines and National Australia Bank. The company says it has handled 128 million deployments and optimized $1.9 billion in cloud spend.Earlier this year, Harness merged with Bansal’s application security firm, Traceable. This integration of DevOps and security is reportedly driving significant growth. It strengthens the platform’s value proposition in a consolidated market.

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With this new capital, Harness plans to aggressively expand its AI DevOps capabilities and global footprint, positioning itself as a central platform for the era of AI-driven software development.

Info at your fingertips

Q1: How much funding did Harness just raise?

Harness raised a $240 million Series E round. The investment was led by Goldman Sachs. It brings the company’s total equity funding to $570 million.

Q2: What is Harness’s new valuation?

The funding round values Harness at $5.5 billion post-money. This is a 49% increase from its $3.7 billion valuation in 2022. The jump reflects strong market confidence.

Q3: What problem does Harness’s AI platform solve?

It automates the testing, security, and deployment phase after code is written. This phase can consume 70% of engineering time. Automation is critical as AI generates code faster.

Q4: Who are Harness’s main competitors?

Key competitors include Microsoft’s GitHub, GitLab, Jenkins, and CloudBees. The market for DevOps automation is crowded and competitive. Harness differentiates with its AI-powered knowledge graph.

Q5: Does Harness plan to go public?

Founder Jyoti Bansal has stated an eventual IPO is the goal. He said the business is healthy and high-growth. No specific timeline for going public was shared.